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BEING an active litigator in the fields of criminal, family, labor
and administrative law, I recognized almost all the trial court
judges whose names appear on the public notice of the Supreme Court
for two vacant positions of Associate Justice to the Sandiganbayan.
These judges have been scheduled for interviews with members of the
Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) and the public has been invited to
attend and participate at these interviews. While all are deserving,
there are two outstanding judges whose sterling character and
impeccable credentials I have had the honor to observe first
hand—Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judges Socorro Inting of Manila
and Ferdinand Fe of La Union Province.
Judge Ferdinand Fe is a criminal court judge who
has received, but has remained unfazed by, multiple death threats in
many cases. As counsel for DSWD and Bantay Bata, I started
prosecuting the Naguilian Massacre in the Regional Trial Court in
Bauang, La Union Province, but I knew I was fighting an uphill
battle. A 14-year-old child was supposed to testify on her multiple
child rape charges against the Administrator of the Social Welfare
Department Regional Office, particularly David Garcia. On the date
scheduled for her judicial testimony, she was killed and her family
massacred. A motion to quash was filed in the rape case because the
only witness was the child. I argued that the Supreme Court had
already promulgated the Child Witness Rules, which deemed the
disclosures made by a child to another person in child abuse cases
as admissible even without the presence of the child in court. I
had, in an earlier published work, pushed for such admissibility,
arguing that the state of a child’s disclosure is analogous to a
“res gestae” situation, meaning that statements made immediately
before, during or after a startling occurrence constitute admissible
testimony even if the person who had personal knowledge of the
subject crime does not testify. When a child has been raped and
discloses such incident, she is actually reliving the crime in her
mind, and that specific circumstance constitutes a startling
occurrence within the child’s psyche.
Judge Fe ruled favorably applying the Child
Witness Rules and subsequently convicted David Garcia and his
cohorts for rape and multiple murder. Amidst threats and pressure,
the good judge stood firm. He decided that all legal conditions for
the utility and applicability of the hearsay admissibility principle
had been met. He cared not for his life nor for the life of his
family, but only that justice be served to the deceased child victim
and her massacred family.
On the other hand, Judge Socorro Inting has been
presiding over two courts in Manila, particularly as Family Court
and Land Registration Court. I first appeared before Judge Inting in
defending incarcerated tender-aged children criminally charged with
curfew violations, solvent sniffing, vagrancy, vandalism, public
urination and petty thievery but who were incarcerated with hardened
adult felons. From the start, I was impressed with the warm,
child-oriented decorum that she had maintained for the children
before her court, always upholding the child’s best interest as
the inflexible standard, but consistently treating cases before her
with cold impartiality and objectivity as a neutral tribunal.
Today, Judge Inting is a multi-awarded Family
Court Judge known for expeditiously dispatching criminal complaints
filed against children in conflict with law. Even private
complainants express satisfaction over judicial dispositions
rendered by Judge Inting while colleagues in criminal and family law
have expressed positive comments about her fair but sincere efforts
to minimize the trauma, shock or stress that children inevitably
experience in judicial litigation. Even when the Juvenile Justice
and Welfare Act was still going through the legislative process,
Judge Inting was already piloting diversion programs in her Family
Court, with her crisp and sober decisions inspiring many of the
principles articulated in the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Law.
Social workers from Bantay Bata 163 and DSWD have expressed utmost
satisfaction at the inoffensive and nurturing methods that Judge
Inting has adapted in her Family Court. In fact, social workers have
reported that children in conflict with law who have passed through
Judge Inting’s family-oriented processes are the least likely to
become repeat offenders; the judge, in fact, holds the record in
this regard. It appears that her methods have ingrained in the
children the need for self-restoration as she treats them with
nurturance and Christ-like compassion.
In the Supreme Court list of prospective
Sandiganbayan justices, these two mighty hearts stand out. In their
respective fields, they are second to none; their integrity and
competence beyond question. Their appointment will not only enhance
the judiciary, it will enrich all of our society by their inevitably
sterling performance as Sandiganbayan justices, clearly navigating
the judicial path with legal innovations and personal courage.
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