The general counsel of presidential aspirant Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.'s political party, Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP), is calling for the disbarment and forfeiture of retirement benefits and lifetime pension of Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Rowena Guazon for allegedly prematurely and illegally disclosing her unfavorable vote against Marcos Jr. over her disqualification petition before the poll body.
Lawyer George Briones of PFP said Guanzon must be penalized "because of her premure disclosure or leaking of her unpromulgated dissenting opinion." The party also asked the Comelec en banc to conduct an administrative investigation "immediately" against her before the release of her retirement benefits.
The PFP counsel has yet to file the required complaints before the Supreme Court in the case of the disbarment or Comelec for the administrative probe.
Guanzon did not make a dissenting opinion, but a separate opinion since she did not divulge the two other commissioners' vote in relation to disqualification petitions.
The Comelec commissioner made public her vote in a GMA interview aired Thursday night.
Briones alleged Guanzon "destroyed the reputation of the institution which these moneys come from."
Briones also said Guanzon "publicly disclosed with undue haste her minority opinion before the submission of the other commissioners' opinion."
He said her action has put her fellow commisioners "under a cloud of suspicion with her bare suspicions that an unnamed politician probably intervened." He said it is "pure hearsay," which should be "condemned by the Supreme Court as unworthy of a sitting commissioner."
"A judge should abstain from making public comments as any pending or impending case and should require similar restraint on the part of the court personnel," Briones said, citing the code of judicial conduct.
Briones also called Guanzon a "yellow," the political color of the Liberal Party, on the basis that she "openly sided" with Marcos Jr.'s rival, Vice President Leni Robredo, "by her undue haste to come out with a decision."
Guanzon, he added, was appointed by the Aquinos, a family of politicians belonging to the opposition party, to different government positions.
So, she "should have inherited herself in these disqualification cases" against Marcos Jr., Briones claimed.