Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno is standing firm. She is not taking the easy way out, she said, because she is doing the right thing—fighting impeachment to the end.

Indeed it would be easier for everybody if she just quit. Now that the House has found probable cause that the chief justice indeed committed impeachable acts, a very public and time-consuming trial at the Senate is a certainty.Indeed it would be easier for everybody if she just quit. Now that the House has found probable cause that the chief justice indeed committed impeachable acts, a very public and time-consuming trial at the Senate is a certainty.

For months, senators will be preoccupied not with lawmaking but with donning their robes as they act as judges in Sereno’s case.

Members of the judiciary will be distracted from their tasks, especially since the testimonies of some of them were instrumental in convincing House members that Sereno’s case should be transmitted to the Senate. That is, assuming the lawmakers did not have a foregone conclusion in mind at that time.

The public, too, will be consumed with the details, likely unsavory, that will be revealed during the trial. We will be tricked into believing that this is of earth-shaking importance, trumping all other national issues like poverty, unemployment, corruption across the board, competitiveness or our lack thereof.

Most of all, Sereno herself will be taxed by the pressure and the merciless media attention.

Still, she believes it is worth staying.

The right thing in this case is never absolute. It depends on who is speaking. There is the right thing for Sereno, for the judiciary, for her opponents, for the general public, for truth itself.

In the next few days we will know which right is more right than others. We just hope what prevails is the best course for the greatest number.