A CIVIL suit originally filed against a member of the Abines clan 13 years ago, back when family members still dominated politics in Cebu’s first congressional district, is being revived.

Records of the case, which then Municipal Trial Court (MTC) Judge Gaudioso Villarin dismissed only three months after it was filed, reached the RTC civil division last week.

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The suit impleaded former Santander mayor Priscilla Abines and involved her bus company, Abines Bus Lines, and holds as co-defendant one of her drivers, Adelaido Cabanas Jr.

“Defendant Priscilla Abines failed (to) exercise due diligence in the selection and supervision of her driver, the other defendant,” the suit read.

She was the incumbent mayor of Santander when the suit was filed. Her late husband, Crisologo Abines Jr., on the other hand, was then the district’s congressman.

Villarin has since been promoted to Regional Trial Court (RTC) judge and assigned to Toledo City.

He was “indefinitely suspended” in November 2007, however, over allegations of irregularity in the way he resolved several nullity of marriage petitions in his court.

Based on the complaint, Cabanas, at 8:40 a.m. on May 1, 1996, accidentally sideswiped Julia Barinquit while driving “in a reckless and haphazard manner” on V. Rama Ave., Cebu City.

The impact, Barinquit said, knocked her flat on the ground.

But instead of immediately helping her, Barinquit added, the bus driver tried to maneuver the vehicle backward “with the intention of hitting plaintiff a second time and killing her.”

Barinquit said she was able to move away. Still, she said, the bus ran over her leg.

“Defendant was deterred from pursuing his malevolent design further by several bystanders who, seeing what he did, shouted angrily at him and insisted that he brought plaintiff to the hospital, which he did to sooth the ire of the bystanders,” the complaint added.

Barinquit narrated that Abines first shouldered her hospital expenses.

However, she added, Abines reneged on their duty to shoulder her medication as well as pay her for lost income during those times she had to walk around with a cast on her leg.

Barinquit is a laundrywoman who also bought and sold bottles and used newspapers for recycling.

Abines, through her lawyer, moved for the immediate dismissal of the suit, which got raffled to Villarin.

She said Barinquit signed an affidavit of desistance and that this served as both a waiver and quitclaim to any civil proceeding.

Barinquit, on the other hand, moved for the denial of the motion, saying the affidavit was fraudulently obtained.

But Villarin granted it anyway.

“After a careful examination of the argument upon which the defendants anchored the subject motion, the court believes and so holds that the plaintiff had expressly declared that she is no longer interested in prosecuting either criminally or civilly a case against the defendants,” he said.

The suit itself did not ask for much. It only asked the court to award Barinquit, who was represented by the Office of the Public Attorney as a “pauper litigant,” P15,000 in actual damages plus P15,000 more in moral and exemplary damages.

It also asked for P5,000 as reimbursement for medical expenses.