Saturday, February 09, 2008 Nalzaro: Judge Econg mentioned in report By Bobby Nalzaro Saksi
WHEN the marriage scam issue broke out in our local courts, the Supreme Court sent a judicial audit team to conduct an investigation on the matter. The team, headed by lawyer Rullyn Garcia, Judicial Supervisor for Region 7 of the Office of the Court Administrator, scrutinized voluminous records of civil marriages solemnized by Regional Trial Court (RTC) and Municipal Trial Court in Cities (MTCC) judges.
Garcia and RTC Executive Judge Fortunato de Garcia claimed that no RTC judge was linked to the controversy. But this may not be true. In the documents I obtained, the name of RTC Judge Geraldine Faith Econg (Branch 9) was mentioned. A resolution signed by Enriquita Esguerra Vidal, clerk of court of the First Division of the Supreme Court directed Econg to answer within 30 days their findings on her alleged questionable conduct in solemnizing marriages.
The resolution stated that, “for the years 2004, 2006 and 2007, Judge Econg solemnized a total of 412 marriages. Most of the marriages she solemnized were either with marriage licenses secured from the Local Civil Registrar (LCR) of Barili, Cebu or without any marriage license at all since the marriages were solemnized under Article 34 of the Family Code. This is highly suspicious considering that Barili is a municipality with relatively small population compared to the other areas in Cebu, especially the highly urbanized cities like Cebu City.”
It added that, “the number of marriages solemnized under Article 34 is statistically high (27.7 per cent of the total number of marriages) as to make one wonder if it was only resorted to by the parties to circumvent the requirement on marriage license. Eleven marriages with licenses obtained from LCR of Barili involve contracting parties neither of whom are residents of Barili which fact could be easily seen on the face of the marriage certificates.
“Sixty-three marriages with marriage licenses obtained from the LCR of Barili were solemnized on the same day the respective licenses were obtained which incidents may not be improbable to have occurred except that four of these marriages were solemnized as early as 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning making it quite impossible for the parties to secure the licenses from Barili and then proceed to either Cebu City or Minglanilla for the marriage ceremonies considering the distance between said places which is more than an hour's drive.
“Three of the 114 marriages solemnized under Article 34 involve contracting parties where one of the partner is still under 23 years of age at the time of marriage, meaning said party is still a minor during the 5-year period of cohabitation.”
Other findings: A marriage between a foreigner and a Filipina was solemnized on May 11, 2007 prior to the issuance of a marriage license on May 18, 2007; marriage license of two Chinese citizens were solemnized without them obtaining Filipino citizenship; 412 certificates of marriage are without any proof of payment of the required marriage fee of P300; Except for the 38 certificates of marriage, Judge Econg failed to retain the quadruplicate copies of the other certificates, a violation of Article 23 of the Family Code; and she also failed to reflect in the monthly report of cases of marriages she solemnized from January 2004 to May 2007.
If Judge Econg committed these acts, why was she not suspended like the other four judges? Sought for comment, she said she will answer the issue in the proper forum.
