SC suspends judge found guilty of abuse

The Supreme Court has suspended a Caloocan City judge who was found guilty of two counts of child abuse.

In a two-page resolution, the High Court’s second division ordered the suspension of Judge Adoracion Angeles of Caloocan City Regional Trial Court Branch 121 until he was cleared of the criminal case pending at the Court of Appeals.

Angeles was earlier convicted by a Quezon City court of two counts of child abuse. The SC was then petitioned by Senior State Prosecutor Emmanuel Velasco to suspend Angeles.

Velasco said the High Court should not allow Angeles to continuously hear cases because she is only out on bail. Angeles should be suspended until she clears her name, he said.

"Judge Angeles now stands convicted on two counts of child abuse under RA 7610, which involves moral turpitude. Until she clears her name, her current moral qualification to do the work of a judge is under a dark cloud," Velasco said.

Angeles was charged with child abuse by a niece in 1999. The judge became widely known when in 1993, she found guilty of homicide 26 members of the Aquila Legis fraternity of the Ateneo Law School for the 1991 hazing and death of freshman student Lenny Villa.