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Friday, March 12, 2004
Judge asks SC to let Nazario take oath and fill SC vacancy
By Benjamin B. Pulta
A LOWER court judge suspended by the Supreme Court (SC) has asked the high court to allow Sandiganbayan anti-graft court magistrate Minita V. Chico-Nazario to take her oath of office to fill the vacancy in the SC.
In a 22-page petition, Judge Florentino V. Floro Jr., who has been suspended as a Malabon regional trial court (RTC) magistrate, also asked the court to exclude Solicitor General Alfredo Benipayo from the list of nominees for the position.
"Benipayo lacks integrity, is so corrupt, has no moral fitness, is medically/mentally/psychologically unfit, lacks leadership and cannot restore public trust in the judiciary," a portion of the suit filed Thursday by Floro said.
"Justice Benipayo cannot deny the fact that he became richer in government by more than P12 million in the past three years. Benipayo's immorality has been exposed and proved by overwhelming verified reports of an affair with a subordinate in the Supreme Court when he was its administrator and he had impregnated a former student who later became a Manila councilor," Floro added.
The judge pointed out that under the charter, any SC vacancy shall be filed within ninety days two months immediately before the next presidential elections.
The controversy over Nazario, Floro said, "transcends the person of Nazario… (and) affects some of our most deeply held values in democracy--the protection of political and judicial rights, the disapprobation of political loyalty in our temples of justice and elimination of all invidious discrimination in the JBC nomination process."
Floro has been preventively suspended by the SC for more than four and a half years for gross ignorance of the law, rules and canons.
(March 12, 2004 issue)
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