Injustice & corruption: A 20-year old problem

Allow me to grab a pun or thought from our publisher Mr. Juanito Jabat who would have written in his column "Have Bat Will Strike... about yesterday's "dry" run for the ASEAN Summit Security preparations that it really was not a dry but a "wet" run as the rains kept drenching us for the last three days. Thankfully, these rains are a result of a tropical depression due to a cold front and strong "Amihan" winds and not coming from any typhoon. Strong rains definitely won't be enough to cause the postponement of the 12th ASEAN Leader's Summit. So come rain or come shine... the ASEAN Summit is going full speed ahead!

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Still on summit issues. I was quite taken by surprise that Department of Public Works and Highways (DPHW) officials in Central Visayas led by its regional director Roberto Lala is facing charges in the Office of the Ombudsman for the crime of plunder supposedly for canceling a contract for the supply of security cameras and giving it to a disqualified bidder. This bidder turns out to be Mr. Crisologo Saavedra of Pelican Bay Group.

I'm sure that the name Cris Saavedra is quite familiar to the Office of the Ombudsman because it seems to be his modus operandi to enter into government contracts hoping to make money from such deals and if they get into technical problems...he always ends up suing the government. I'm sure that the DPWH officials are not stupid to throw out a winning bidder in favor of one they disqualified. They know too well that they are vulnerable to court suits if they make such serious mistakes.

These are a lot of intricacies in government contracts especially when it comes to high-tech projects like a video surveillance cameras. However we should ask Visayas Ombudsman Virginia Palanca if she is at liberty to reveal how many cases has Saavedra has filed against government officials? I know of two or three previous ones that he has filed...I'm sure that there's more. So let's hear it from the Office of the Ombudsman.

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Talking about irregularities... I'm sure that by now you've heard about the recently exposed irregularity to hit the Judiciary... where some 101 drug-related cases were endorsed to a Regional Trial Court judge without passing through the mandated and very fair raffle process. I've heard about this sometime ago, but since we can't get any proof, we dismissed it as mere rumor. However a week ago, I heard that this really happened from no less than RTC executive judge Simeon Dumdum, who obviously wasn't happy that this was going on in the Courts of Cebu.

Let me say it here that for so many years, I have heard from many lawyers talking quite freely that they have a favorite judge who can help "fix" their cases and while their cases are still "raffled" they can still be assured that their cases still end in the sala of their favorite judge. Honestly, I don't know what kind of trickery some judges use... but I'm positive that it is not black magic! As for those 101 cases, they were all approved by judge Ireneo Lee Gako and without a doubt; they are highly questionable or irregular. 101 cases drug-related cases finding its way to a single judge?

Right now, judge Dumdum has asked the Office of the Court Administrator to conduct investigate the case. I'd like to point out that many of us in the media often refrain from writing about judges fearing that someday, their articles will boomerang on them if and when they have cases in our courts. But the truth must come out. Did judge Gako err in endorsing all those cases sans any raffle? I would like to know what happened?

As of the moment, we can only say that it is highly irregular as it is not the usual way that the courts conduct their daily business. We can only hope that the OCA will immediately dispatch its investigating team on this issue...who knows we just might be seeing the tip of the iceberg on this one.

It's bad enough that our judicial system works ever so slowly...hence whenever justice gets delayed...someone is denied his right to justice. But what do we do when a judge himself commits a serious infraction? Precisely this is the point in having a raffle system so that someone's case might not fall on someone's favorite judge to the detriment of the opposing party.

We're really sick and tired of hearing that corruption within the government is still very much around. But when it is the Judiciary that is plagued with corruption, the situation becomes hopeless for our people because where else would they go to find justice? Again allow me to remind our readers that we got rid of the Marcos Dictatorship because of corruption and injustice. Twenty years later, these problems are still with us today.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit's columns can also be accessed at www.shootinginsidecebu.blogspot.com