SCROLLING down: Focus on the two Makati judges who gave contrasting conclusions on finding of facts and application of the laws in the Trillanes amnesty case. Did they go to different law schools? They did: Judge Soriano went to San Beda; Judge Alameda studied at University of the East... Why the criticism that the judge was “dilawan” or yellow won’t stand... Word of the day, contained in the day’s quote: “immutable.”
FIRST, what are asked in the rumor circuit:
* Would father Antonio, former and long-time congressman who’s running for Cebu City councilor, give way to his son James in the Barug-PDP Laban slate? A substitution can be made before November 29 but will it be done?
* Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio left a puzzler in her recent Cebu City visit: she seemed to say one thing at one time and say another thing at another time, in different settings. Is she or her party Hugpong ng Pagbabago supporting candidates in Cebu? She gave seemingly confusing signals.
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Soriano highlighted: feelings for PNoy
Makati RTC Branch 148 Presiding Judge Andres Bartolome Soriano graduated from Ateneo Law School, not San Beda. Then president Noynoy Aquino in 2012 appointed him to the Makati RTC sala in 2012. But the same Noynoy in 2015 bypassed Soriano when the judge was short-listed for a justice seat in the Court of Appeals. Noynoy appointed another Makati judge, not Soriano.
Atenean Soriano didn’t have President Duterte as batch-mate or even as schoolmate. But then Justice Secretary Medardo Guevarra, who defended the Duterte’s position on Senator Antonio Trillanes IV’s coup d’etat case, was Soriano’s junior at Ateneo (Soriano graduated 1983; Guevarra, 1985). Guevarra was theoretically “brighter”: he graduated magna cum laude and placed second in the 1985 bar exams.
So Judge Soriano, who ruled in favor of Trillanes, was supposed to be both pleased and sore at Noynoy and should even be chummy with Guevarra, who defended the state’s case. Thus, criticisms about the ruling based on Judge Soriano’s alleged “dilawan” ties won’t fly. Had the judge ruled against Trillanes, would they have criticized the judge for being a Dutertista?
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Focus on Alameda: U.E. graduate
Makati RTC Branch 150 Presiding Judge Elmo Alameda is a University of the East graduate, a prosecutor for 16 years, and has been a judge for over 10 years.
A Rappler report said he has handled high-profile cases: aside from the Manila Peninsula siege rebellion charges against Trillanes and 17 others, Alameda was the judge in the homicide case against former Batangas governor Antonio Leviste and the serious illegal detention case against Janet Lim Napoles and Reynald Lim in connection with the pork barrel fraud.
He must be no stranger to controversy or in covert attempts to influence judges’ decisions.
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Varying views: two judges
Judge Alameda, who earlier ordered Trillanes arrested but freed him on P200,000 bail, reopened rebellion charges against the senator and will start hearing it on November 21.
Odd to non-lawyers but not to lawyers that two judges, both schooled in the same books of law and their precepts, should rule differently on Trillanes’s case. More so that Alameda himself dismissed the rebellion charge on September 7, 2011.
They disagreed no findings of fact as well: whether Trillanes actually complied with the requisites of amnesty.
Speculations and rumors rush in when people cannot understand what they read about and know.
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Word of the day: ‘immutable’
In the day’s quote: “[The Trillanes coup d’etat case] was dismissed on September 21, 2011 and the dismissal was final and executory. Well established is the doctrine that a final and executory judgment shall be immutable.”
“Immutable,” Webster’s says, is “unchangeable, never changing or varying.”
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