While length in the career service and seniority are traditional guideposts in the selection of appointees to the judiciary, they should never supplant the high standards of proven independence and adherence to ethical values required of justices and judges.

Career and seniority are matters of chronology but independence and ethical values are qualities of character.

The crow has been here for ages but despite its seniority it has not learned to speak.

Proven independence and adherence to ethical values should have been the overriding yardstick in considering De Castro for appointment as chief justice.

She would have apparently failed the test due to her conspiratorial and unethical role in ousting former Chief Justice Sereno, whose removal was publicly demanded by President Rodrigo Duterte, and for her refusal to inhibit herself from adjudicating the petition for quo warranto despite her admitted continuing ill will against Sereno.

De Castro is facing an impeachment complaint for culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayal of public trust together with Justices Diosdado Peralta and Lucas Bersamin who were also shortlisted.

Due to the pendency of the impeachment complaints, the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) should have considered the same as ground for disqualification of aspirants, just like the pendency of an administrative case, rather than forwarding in haste to the President the shortlist of nominees for the position of chief magistrate.

Moreover, the President should not have acted with undue dispatch in choosing De Castro as the next chief justice.

The emerging public backlash repudiating the choice of De Castro must impel the JBC and the President to reconsider her nomination and appointment.

EDCEL C. LAGMAN