Judge asks SC to junk case filed against him

CEBU, Philippines - Regional Trial Court Judge Wilfredo Fiel Navarro asked for the dismissal of the administrative complaint filed against him by the late Cebu vice governor Gregorio Sanchez Jr. before the Supreme Court.

Navarro was the handling judge of the petition filed by Sanchez last July 15, 2010 for mandamus, prohibition and damages against Governor Gwendolyn Garcia and the three Capitol officials in a bid to retain the services of his consultants.

Earlier, Sanchez, through his lawyer Oliveros Kintanar, filed a complaint before the SC for the dismissal of the petition without the comment of the respondents to retain the nine consultants in the Office of the Vice Governor.

Sanchez said Navarro showed ignorance of the law and gross neglect and serious inefficiency for giving a decision to the urgent motion to withdraw the petition last Dec. 13 without the comment of the other party.

But Navarro said he only dismissed the petition, citing Sanchez disposition of not pursuing the case.

He said he correctly treated the petition as a plain and ordinary suit and not a special civil action for prohibition and mandamus.

He said he should not be gauged based only on the delay of the resolving the petition as he has pending cases to resolve as the court was vacant for two years.

Navarro then asked for the dismissal of the administrative complaint “for patent want of merit be it factually or legally.”

He moreover said “the counsel of complainant, Atty. Oliveros Kintanar, be held to account for his malpractice in relation to his nefarious manner in handling the administrative complaint on behalf of now deceased complainant Vice Governor Sanchez and be accordingly meted the appropriate sanction to his serious and grave misconduct.”

This case came after Kintanar said Navarro displayed ignorance of the law when he allegedly failed to direct respondents Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia, Provincial Attorney Marino Martinquilla, Provincial Administrator Eduardo Habin and Provincial Treasurer Roy Salubre to comment on their petition for withdraw.

However, Navarro said he summoned them directing to submit their comment but they did not.

“The failure to comment of the respondents only means they have effectively waived their rights to give their written comment as indeed what is there to comment about when complainant himself sought the dismissal of his own petition.”

Navarro said when he ordered the dismissal of the petition on February 4, 2011 he was doing exactly what the complainant wanted.

He added what complainant’s claimed of his inaction of the petition was not true.

“It is simply inexplicable how and where complainant got the idea that his petition remained enacted for eight months. Obviously, this exaggerated period is neither here nor there, hence, inanely outlandish unworthy of even the slightest belief or credence,” Navarro said. — (FREEMAN)