Friday, November 16, 2007 Does the chief justice have anything v. Cebu? By Karlon N. Rama Sun.Star Staff Reporter
DOES the chief justice have anything against Cebu?
Some employees at the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Cebu City raised this issue yesterday following the “indefinite” suspension of another Cebu-based judge—Gaudioso Villarin.
The RTC judge, who is months away from retirement, has been linked to the alleged practice of selling approvals of petitions for annulment of marriages.
Villarin is the sixth Cebu-based judge suspended by the High Tribunal this year.
A formal investigation is yet to be conducted but the Supreme Court en banc has already issued a resolution forbidding him from reporting to work.
The sole basis of the suspension is the report of an audit team Chief Justice Reynato Puno earlier sent to Villarin’s assigned court, the 59th branch of the RTC in Cebu, based in Toledo City.
The team said there were an “unusual” number of annulment petitions filed before Villarin’s court.
Last July, four Municipal Trial Court in Cities (MTCC) judges— Anatalio Necesario, Gil Acosta, Rosabella Tormis and Edgemelo Rosales—were barred from reporting to work under suspicion of allegedly making on-the-side money by holding civil weddings.
Puno, upon the recommendation of the same audit team that handled Villarin’s case, ordered the filing of administrative charges for corruption, dishonesty, gross ignorance of the law, and deliberate violation of the law, without first requiring that the judges submit their comment.
Like Villarin’s case, the sole basis for the suspension is the audit team’s report that the number of marriages solemnized by the four judges was higher than the number of marriage certificates on record.
There were also flaws in the marriage licenses issued by local civil registrar.
The judges said the two findings don’t prove anything beyond the fact that they perform their functions diligently.
On the discrepancy between the number of weddings recorded in the log and in the copy of marriage certificates on record, the judges said they don’t keep copies of marriage certificates after they endorse these to the Office of the Local Civil Registrar.
Spare copies
Those that do get retained are spare copies.
And on the flaws and defects in the marriage licenses, the judge said the marriage licenses were issued by another agency and that they can’t possibly know if there were defects in them.
The one who first raised allegations of how some judges make extra money by officiating weddings is himself an MTCC judge.
The High Tribunal, two months after the suspension of his four colleagues, also suspended Judge Donato Sotero Navarro for six months and fined P10,000.
Navarro, son of retired judge Exaltacion Navarro, allegedly ignoed the law or procedure and delayed giving a decision.
Navarro has already been precluded from hearing new cases until his backlog at Branch 6 of the Municipal Trial Court in Cities (MTCC) is cleared.
Navarro said the penalty “was too much.”
Warrant
The penalty on Navarro stemmed from an administrative complaint that accused him of failing to issue a warrant of arrest within the period prescribed for a case of attempted homicide against one Allan Arcilla.
The homicide case had been with Navarro since Oct. 21, 2003 but no warrant had been issued “despite repeated requests for the issuance.”
Even retired judges aren’t spared by the High Court. A month before Navar-ro’s suspension, Supreme Court (SC) issued an order fining a retired judge P20,000 for defying an order.
The SC found RTC Judge Ireneo Lee Gako guilty of grave abuse of authority for issuing a temporary restraining order in favor of squatters living in Capitol Hills.
The decision came barely a day after it was reported that Gako was asked by the SC to explain why he acted on hundreds of drug dependents’ petitions for voluntary rehabilitation from 1998 until he retired last year.
The SC is now looking in the direction of other retired judges.
Judicial Supervisor for Central Visayas Rullyn Garcia said they’ve received reports that these retired judges are making money off bail bonds.
