There is something seriously wrong and distasteful in our constitutional system when a relatively junior Supreme Court associate justice vying for the prestigious and influential rank of Chief Justice uses (or abuses) the mass media in support of his bid to counteract strong public opinion against his pending appointment by his former political boss and presidential benefactor, Pres. Gloria Arroyo.
In doing so, he unwittingly exposes to the shocked and demoralized Filipino public the scandalous secrets, cunning horse-trading and power play, and other stinking hidden judicial skeletons inside the potentially disgraced halls and chambers of the Supreme Court.
This is the case of Justice Renato Corona, ex-chief of staff of Pres. Gloria Arroyo during the stint of the latter in the 1990s as a headline-hugging pro-globalization and pro-privatization senator.
Read below a recent news item on the matter.
Read also an entry of mine last month in this blog entitled “Midnight Appointments to the Judiciary”.
Corona hits charge of unethical conduct
BY EVANGELINE DE VERA
http://www.malaya.com.ph
A COMPLAINT for impropriety filed by a losing litigant in a "tele-sabong" or online cockfight betting against a Supreme Court justice has showcased a masked animosity between two rivals for the position of chief justice.
Associate Justice Renato Corona yesterday branded as "vicious and malicious lies" the allegations in the complaint filed against him before the Judicial and Bar Council where he is one of the nominees for the position of chief justice.
The JBC is expected to start publishing the names of eight nominees for the position of chief justice this week with the completion of its review on the candidates.
The complaint against Corona was filed before the JBC by lawyer Fernando Campos who accused Corona of accepting airline tickets to Las Vegas on May 3, 2009 to watch the Manny Pacquiao-Ricky Hatton fight. The complaint did not say who gave the tickets.
Campos is chairman of the Inter-Petal Recreational Corp (IPRC), a company whose clientele includes cockfighting aficionados abroad. He filed a petition for certiorari against Pagcor and Philweb Corp. in connection with the operation of an online cockfight betting.
In his letter-reply to the JBC, Corona said there was nothing irregular in his outright dismissal of the IPRC petition.
"The IPRC/Campos petition was hobbled by various procedural infirmities. Indeed, the petition was patently and hopelessly defective on its face, there was no way the Court could have waived such serious violations of the Rules of Court when it issued the April 20, 2009 resolution dismissing it," said Corona.
Corona further said the decision in that case was reached in consultation with members of the Court’s First Division, including its working chairman, Associate Justice Antonio Carpio.
Other members of the First Division are Chief Justice Reynato Puno, Associate Justices Teresita Leonardo-de Castro, Lucas Bersamin, Corona and Carpio.
Corona labeled as "curious" the "unusual effort" of Campos to dissociate Carpio from the April 20, 2009 and July 8, 2009 resolution when the latter agreed with all the other members of the First Division in finding lack of merit to the petition of IPRC, and he also concurred with the July 8, 2009 resolution denying with finality the motion for reconsideration.
"It is highly suspicious that Campos lays all the blame and heaps all sorts of slanderous insinuations solely on me while, at the same time, clearing another member of the First Division who also participated in the dismissal of the petition," he said.
"Why the special interest in pinning me down as ‘sole author’ of the assailed resolution while readily absolving another member of the First Division who participated in the dismissal (of the petition)? Who breached the rule of confidentiality and colluded with Campos in filing this complaint against me? Was Campos’ ‘reliable source’ a member of the First Division?" Corona added.
In defending himself, Corona further told the JBC that it was Campos himself who actively tried to pressure him into deciding in his favor when he asked different people to intercede on his behalf, among them retired Justices Angelina Sandoval-Gutierrez, Santiago Kapunan and Leonardo Quisumbing.
Corona also belied Campos’ insinuation that Philweb financed his trip to the US in May 2009.
He said that the month of May is traditionally the SC’s summer recess and in his years in the SC since 2002, he and his wife have always taken that opportunity to visit their daughter and her family in the United States, with or without a Pacquiao fight.
He also said he has always paid for his trips. He annexed a copy of his receipt for the May 2009 trip.
Based on records of the IPRC case, Pagcor stepped in on IPRC’s tax and franchise papers before the Cavite city government for the operation of the "tele-sabong," claiming that it had jurisdiction over the grant of franchise to on-line gaming firms in the country.
The legal suit resulted in multi-million losses when investors started backing out of IPRC.
Later, Pagcor entered into a deal with PhilWeb, a gaming firm chaired by former Marcos trade minister Roberto Ongpin.
Supreme Court spokesman Jose Midas Marquez said the publication of the JBC list will run for two weeks in newspapers of national circulation.
Following the publication of the names of the aspirants, the JBC will accept comments from the public. Based on these comments, it will decide on whether to hold public interviews on the aspirants.
The JBC officially closed the nomination on February 4, with eight applicants.
Those who submitted applications for or were endorsed to the post were Associate Justices Renato Corona, Arturo Brion and Teresita Leonardo De-Castro; Edilberto Sandoval, Sandiganbayan acting presiding justice; Victor Fernandez, deputy Ombudsman for Luzon; Ombudsman Special Prosecutor Dennis Villa-Ignacio; and former Malabon judge Florentino Floro Jr.
Floro has been excluded from the list owing to his dismissal from the bench.
On Villa-Ignacio, Marquez said the JBC has directed its ex-officio secretariat to determine whether Villa-Ignacio has pending criminal cases and their status.
See:
http://www.malaya.com.ph/02092010/news2.html
Read also:
Lawyer brings up 21-year-old case vs Carpio
By Dona Pazzibugan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:01:00 02/20/2010
MANILA, Philippines—Citing a 21-year-old allegation, a lawyer on Friday objected to the nomination of Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio as next chief justice.
Joel Obar, who identified himself as a former law dean of the Foundation University in Dumaguete City and a columnist of the local newspaper Negros Chronicle, accused Carpio of “soliciting votes and electioneering” during the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) election in 1989.
Carpio, who will be the most senior member of the Supreme Court when Chief Justice Reynato Puno retires on May 17, is among the six nominees being considered by the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) to replace Puno. (See related story on Page A3.)
Carpio could not be reached for comment but his former law partner, Arthur Villaraza, said in a text message to the Inquirer: “Carpio was not charged or penalized in that case. He was not a candidate in that IBP election.”
Lawyer’s claims
Obar said Carpio’s name cropped up in a Supreme Court inquiry in 1989 “where it was revealed that candidates for the IBP presidency as well as their supporters have used government property and resources and even extravagantly spent for solicitation of votes and electioneering in clear contravention of the mandate of the IBP By-Laws that the body should at all times remain apolitical.”
Obar claimed Carpio was one of the supposed “conspirators who treated the sanctity of such elections with ignominy.”
“From the records of the aforementioned case, it was clearly established as a fact that Antonio Carpio spent P20,000 in hotel accommodation in the Philippine Plaza hotel to billet the delegates,” Obar alleged in his letter.
“This has been adjudged by the Supreme Court as a conscious and deliberate act to influence the outcome of the elections, in clear contravention of the IBP laws.”
‘An old case’
Supreme Court Administrator and spokesperson Jose Midas Marquez said: “It’s an old case which happened more than 20 years ago. But just the same the letter may be included on the agenda of the JBC on Monday.”
Obar gave reporters copies of a two-page letter he filed before the eight-member JBC. The council has started its process to come up with a final short list of three nominees to succeed Puno.
The Supreme Court has been asked to rule on whether President Macapagal-Arroyo would still have the authority to appoint the next chief justice when the appointments ban during the current election period kicks in on March 11.
Article VII of the Constitution states that “two months immediately before the next presidential elections and up to the end of his term, a President or Acting President shall not make appointments, except temporary appointments to executive positions when continued vacancies therein will prejudice public service or endanger public safety.”
Other nominees
Obar told the JBC that Carpio “should not be allowed to tarnish even by mere perception the last bastion of decency in this country ...”
“We should stand guard against the appointment of Mr. Antonio Carpio to the highest position of the Court lest we endanger its integrity and shatter beyond repair the very foundation of our democratic institution,” the lawyer said.
The other nominees for the chief justice post are Associate Justices Renato Corona, Conchita Carpio-Morales, Teresita Leonardo-de Castro and Arturo Brion. Sandiganbayan Acting Presiding Justice Edilberto Sandoval is the sixth nominee.
Rumored choice
Last week, a complaint of impropriety was filed by lawyer Fernando Campos against Corona, Ms Arroyo’s former chief of staff, who is rumored to be Ms Arroyo’s choice for chief justice.
Campos, chair of Inter-Petal Recreational Corp. (IPRC), the developer of the first online cockfighting or tele-sabong, told the JBC that Corona acted with undue haste in dismissing their petition for certiorari against the Securities and Exchange Commission, PhilWeb and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.
Corona called Campos’ accusations “totally false, malicious and outright lie” and hinted that Campos was being used by some people to jeopardize his bid for the chief justice post.
Carpio later denied Corona’s allusion that he had a hand in that complaint.
See:
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20100220-254255/Lawyer-brings-up-21-year-old-case-vs-Carpio
Postscript:
3 letters opposing Carpio CJ bid now with JBC
MANILA, Philippines - The Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) has already received 3 letters opposing Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio's application to be the next Chief Justice.
The three letters received by the JBC came from former Dumaguete City Foundation University Dean Joel Obar, a certain Delfin Cruz, and one coming from a certain Col. Brigido Nabil Mesina, a member of the advisory council of Transparency International.
In his letter, Obar opposed Carpio's bid to become the next chief justice because he had a case back in 1989, where the Supreme Court (SC) said his actions during an election in the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) might have influenced the outcome of the organization's poll.
Cruz's letter, meanwhile, said that Carpio should have inhibited from a case of corruption and grave abuse of discretion, involving Makati Regional Trial Court Judge Cesar Untal.
In the said case, Cruz said, Carpio's law firm was the counsel of Untal's opponent in the case, La Savoie Development Corporation.
The case, the letter said, was eventually dismissed by the SC 1st Division, where he was working chairman.
In his defense, Carpio, in a letter to the JBC, said that there was no basis for him to inhibit from the case because the Villaraza and Angcangco Law Office was "never" a counsel in the Untalan case, and he has not been a partner in the law firm since becoming SC justice.
He also said that he does not personally know Untalan and the owners of La Savoie, and despite being part of the SC's 1st Division. he was not the ponente in the dismissed case.
"There was clearly no ground whatsoever to inhibit myself, either mandatory or voluntarily, in the administrative case against Judge Untalan," his letter said.
Meawhile, Mesina's opposition letter said he was not satisfied with the decision of the 1st Division on a certain case - which he did not elaborate on - and asked for a motion for reconsideration from the SC, and a request for the whole 1st Division to inhibit from the unnamed case.
Carpio has yet to reply to the letters of Mesina and Obar. -- From a report by Timi Nubla, ABS-CBN News as of 02/22/2010 11:45 PM
see:
http://news.abs-cbn.com/print/89747?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20abs-cbn%2FLeqC%20%28ABS-CBN%20News%20Online%20-%20Nation%29
