Wednesday, October 17, 2007 SC team to probe annulment ‘scam’ By Karlon N. Rama Sun.Star Staff Reporter With Katrina N. Tabanao
LAWYERS are said to be avoiding Cebu City-based trial courts for civil suits involving the annulment of marriage.
They instead file their petitions in Regional Trial Courts (RTCs) like the one in Toledo City.
Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Reynato Puno sent a six-man investigating panel to Toledo to verify reports that it is the new “annulment” capital of the country.
Lawyer Rullyn Garcia, SC judicial supervisor for Central Visayas, is heading the full judicial audit and investigation on the two RTC salas in Toledo.
Garcia said the investigation stemmed from the reports they received about the Toledo RTC.
“We are checking if there is basis to the tag that they are the annulment capital of the country,” said Garcia.
While the Rules on Civil Procedure state that petitioners must file their pleading in the court that exercises jurisdiction over his or her residence, the rule is easy to circumvent.
Lawyers simply indicate in their suits that the petitioner is a resident of the town or city where the RTC of their choice exercises jurisdiction and “borrow” the address of a local contact.
Summons and other issuances of the court can be sent to the local contact and the latter takes care of mailing the document to the petitioner or the lawyer.
But, more often than not, the court sends the documents directly to the lawyer’s office here in Cebu City.
Moving
A check at the RTC Office of the Clerk of Court shows that only three petitions for annulment have been filed with the RTC in Cebu City since Oct. 1. In 2006, the average was two suits every three days and in 2005, it was five per week and in 2004, it was one after every 24 hours.
A lawyer, who asked not to be named, admitted that he files his suits out of town because he does not want to risk getting his client’s case raffled off to one particular RTC judge—Raphael Yrastorza.
The presiding judge of RTC Branch 14, Yrastorza is described to be very strict in treating annulment petitions and “generous” in setting the amount for spousal support.
And while there are two other Cebu City RTCs that handle cases involving the Family Code, Branch 22 of Judge Manuel Patalinghug and Judge Olegario Sarmiento’s Branch 24, one in three is “still difficult odds.”
Rules
Sources within the RTC confirmed that the number of annulment petitions filed with the Cebu City Office of the Clerk of Court began to decrease when the court began to strictly enforce the rules in the conduct of raffles.
Before, one source said, lawyers have “facilitators” to make sure that their petitions get endorsed to a “friendly” or a more liberal judge.
In 2004, the town of Barili earned the title of being the annulment capital because of the “unusual” number of cases filed with the Barili RTC.
SC Administrator Christopher Lock said that in nine months, almost 150 annulment cases were filed in RTC Branch 60 presided over by Judge Ildefonso Suerte.
Among the annulment cases Suerte resolved was that of Cebu City Assistant Prosecutor Mary Ann Castro.
Last Oct. 5, Judges Jesus dela Peña of RTC Oslob and Augustine Vestil of RTC Mandaue City were ordered to pay a fine for committing irregularities and procedural lapses in Castro’s annulment.
Dela Peña was the former assisting judge of Branch 56 in Mandaue presided by Vestil, who retired from service recently.
Both judges allegedly had a hand in granting the petition, which was reversed by the Court of Appeals. (Castro withdrew the case but filed it again before the RTC in Barili, which Judge Suerte granted.)
