An investigation on judges included in Duterte’s list is underway and is expected to deliver recommendation after a month.
The Supreme Court ordered a fact-finding investigation against the four active judges who were name-dropped by President Rodrigo Duterte because of alleged involvement in the illegal drug trade in the country.
SC spokesman Theodore Te said the high court requested Executive Sec. Salvador Medialdea to submit a complaint affidavit against the four in seven days.
The respondent judges must submit a response to the complaint within seven days upon receipt of the affidavit.
The SC has directed SC Associate Justice Roberto Abad to solely do the investigation and he needs to finish it within 30 days. He is expected to make some recommendations to the Supreme Court en banc.
For now, no announcement has been made yet as to when the investigation shall start regarding the involvement of Judge Exequil Dagala, MTC, Dapa-Socorro, Surigao; Judge Adriano Savillo, RTC, Branch 30, Iloilo City; Judge Dominggo Casiple, RTC, Branch 7, Kalibo, Aklan at Judge Antonio Reyes, RTC, Branch 1, Baguio City.
While the other three who were named were Judge Lorenda Mupas, a former MTC judge of Dasmariñas, Cavite but was dismissed in 2007; Judge Roberto Navidad, former judge judge ofCalbayog Samar RTC branch 32 bt was killed in 2008 while Rene Gonzales, former judge of MTC branch 7 in Iloilo City had retired last June.
A day after Duterte named the seven municipal and regional trial court judges, Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno has expressed her ‘concerns’ that the president’s name-dropping would create a constitutional crisis in the country.
In the four-page letter of Sereno, she said that she is worried that the naming will affect how the judges would carrry out their adjudicative role. She fears that it will create a problem in the schedule of hearings and conferences on the cases on the bench of the linked judges.
She also called Duterte’s pronouncement as ‘premature’ because his so-called narco-list was only based on informal investigations only.
She suggested the the court will be given the chance to seek preventive measure before the premature public announcement.
In the end, Sereno warned the judges not to surrender to the police if there are no warrants of arrest to protect themselves.