JOMAR CANLAS
CHIEF Justice Maria Lourdes Aranal-Sereno was hospitalized during her 15-day wellness leave, which ends today.
According to a well-placed source of The Manila Times, Sereno has been having heart problems.
The source on Monday said the Chief Justice visited her cardiologist at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Global City in Fort Bonifacio during her wellness leave.
Global City is the popular name of Taguig City in Metro Manila.
The source, however, could not say when exactly Sereno went to her cardiologist.
It was learned that the Chief Justice is having “palpitations” apparently due to stress brought about by her run-ins with SC Associate Justice Arturo Brion.
When she returns to work on Tuesday, Sereno and the other SC justices are expected to vote on the administrative case of Sandiganbayan Justice Gregory Ong over his alleged links to pork barrel scam “brains” Janet Lim-Napoles.
Before she took her wellness leave, the Chief Justice had blocked the nomination of former Solicitor General and now SC Associate Justice Francis Jardeleza to the post vacated by now retired Roberto Abad.
In the course of her objections to the shortlisting of Jardeleza, Sereno was practically kicked out by Brion during en banc deliberation for meddling in the case filed by the then-Solicitor General against her over the blocking of his nomination.
Also during the deliberation, Brion shouted at Sereno and accused her of railroading the case filed by Jardeleza.
The Chief Justice left the deliberation room after she was told by Brion to do so.
The first time that Brion scolded Sereno was during another en banc deliberation, this time on a party-list case in the summer session of the High Court in Baguio City this year.
He took to task Sereno for meddling in the case with which she had dissented.
An angry Brion slammed records of the case on the desk of the en banc room in front of Sereno.
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