F: The respondent President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo tasked Judicial and Bar Council to prepare a short

list of nominees for the position of Chief Justice and on or before May 17,2010 prior to compulsory
retirement of Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno by May 17, 2010.

The petitioners opened an arguments and submissions of various motions for reconsideration. Basing on
the language of Article VII Section 15 wit:

"Two months immediately before the next presidential elections and up to the end of his term, a President
or Acting President shall not make appointments, except temporary appointments to executive positions
when continued vacancies therein will prejudice public service or endanger public safety."

I: Whether the motion for reconsideration for ban of midnight appointment is reasonable prior to Article
VII Sec 17 of the Constitution.

R: NO, The Court denied the motion on the grounds the reconsideration for lack of merit, for all matters
being thereby raised and argued not being new, have all been resolved by the decision of March 17, 2010.

The Supreme Court OPTS three (3) premise for the purpose of clarification and emphasis. First (1) Most
of the movants contend that the principle of stare decisis is controlling. (2) Some intervenors are grossly
misleading the public by their insistence that the constitutional Commission extended to the judiciary the
ban on presidential appointments during the period stated in Section 15 Article VII and Last(3) The
movants take the majority to task for holding that Sec 15, Article VII does not apply to appointments the
judiciary. They aver that the Court either ignored or refused to apply many principles of statutory
construction.

The Supreme Court added that they cannot permit the meaning of the Constitution to be stretched to any
unintended point in order to suit purposes of any quarter