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Monday, September 20, 2004
SC favors dismissal of penalty against Castro
THE graft case filed against Acting Talisay City Prosecutor Mary Ann Castro for allegedly receiving bribe money in relation to the Nanan Gimenez drug case has suffered yet another setback.
The Supreme Court recently junked the Office of the Solicitor General’s (OSG) petition to review an earlier ruling of the Court of Appeals (CA) canceling Castro’s administrative penalty.
Castro was slapped with a three-month suspension and was charged with bribery by the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas.
The High Tribunal, in an Aug. 14 notice signed by Assistant Division Clerk of Court Lucita Soriano, dismissed the July 20 petition for certiorari of the OSG on Castro’s case.
The petition reportedly did not come with a written declaration that no similar case has been filed in another venue as well as a written explanation on why copies of the petition were not served personally to Castro.
Sources from the anti-graft office, however, believe the dismissal is not final and that the matter can still be re-filed after some changes.
“That dismissal is merely because of a technicality. The Supreme Court (SC) is yet to rule on the matter based on merit,” an anti-graft official said.
Castro, for her part, lauded the dismissal and hoped it will eventually become final and executory.
In its 73-page petition for review dated July 20, the OSG asked the SC to reverse the CA ruling, saying it erred in handing the decision.
The petition also stated that the ruling reduces the anti-graft office from an elite graft-busting unit to a “toothless tiger” through its continuous adoption of a “passing and marginal statement.”
The OSG also argued that the CA merely quoted something said in passing the SC’s Tapiador vs. the Office of the Ombudsman ruling when it dismissed Castro’s bribery case last April.
Based on that, the OSG said the CA ruled that the anti-graft office cannot sanction Castro because its authority is merely to recommend penalties, not impose them.
The anti-graft office slapped Castro with the sanctions after she admitted having received a visit from lawyer Gines Abellana at the height of the Hong Kong Triad case.
She said Abellana offered her P10,000 in exchange for not opposing the bail application of Gimenez. KNR
(September 20, 2004 issue)
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