Bad weather prompted the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) and the Supreme Court (SC) to defer their proceedings for the nth  time yesterday on the collegial body’s selection process for the next Chief Justice.
JBC representative  Jose Mejia said the eight-member panel tasked to screen applicants for the Judiciary and the Ombudsman posts cancelled its deliberation following suspension of work on all courts in Metro Manila.
At the same time, the Supreme Court, for the second time, also cancelled its en banc session that was supposed to have deliberated on the disqualification charge against the acting Chief Justice, Antonio Carpio, lodged last week  by Lauro Vizconde of the an anti-crime group.
Carpio also has a pending disbarment charge lodged before the High Court by a town mayor, Mayor Magdaleno Peña, whose case against Carpio was dismissed, although this disbarment case against Carpio remains pending since the mayor filed a motion for reconsideration.
This has to be resolved, otherwise, Carpio will also be disqualified from the race, given the JBC rules. The SC is expected to quickly dismiss all charges against Carpio before the JBC deliberates on the shortlisted nominees.
The 90-day deadline under the Constitution within which time the President must appoint a replacement for the vacancy in the high court approaches this month.
“The JBC meet today is canceled. We have not yet discussed when we will meet,” he said.
Posting on Twitter, JBC member Sen. Francis Escudero likewise confirmed the postponement of the scheduled voting for the Chief Justice shortlist.”The Judicial and Bar Council meet today is canceled. No new date yet although our regular meet is every Monday. Next one is on the 13th,” he said.
This is the fourth time that the JBC has reset the deliberations and voting on the shortlist of Chief Justice candidates, which was first scheduled last July 30.
On Aug. 2, the JBC once more reset deliberations to Aug. 6 owing to oral arguments conducted by the High Court on the composition of the council.
On Monday, Aug. 6, the JBC for the third time sought another extension.
The JBC was supposed to discuss whether to disqualify candidates with pending cases or not. Among those with pending cases include Justice Secretary Leila De Lima, Solicitor General Francis Jardeleza, Presidential Commission on Good Government Chairman Andres Bautista and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Teresita Herbosa.
It was also supposed to come up Wednesday with a shortlist of candidates for the Chief Justice post which will have to be submitted to President Aquino.
The JBC, under the Constitutiom is tasked to screen applicants for the judiciary and the Ombudsman posts. President Aquino has up until August 27 to choose a replacement of ousted Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona, who was found guilty of underdeclaring his statements, assets, liabilities and networth by the Senate Impeachment Court three months ago.
Both the Department of Justice and the Supreme Court announced the suspension of work.
The high court also said that with the work suspension also came the rescheduling of the en banc session to 9:30 a.m. of Thursday.
It was the second time in two weeks that the full court session was reset. On Tuesday, the SC had already reset the session to 9 a.m. of Wednesday.