by Miriam G. Desacada
Two days after granting bail to each of the nine accused of murder in the ambush of the late Calbayog City mayor Ronaldo Aquino and three others, Judge Maricar Lucero inhibited herself from handling the case further.
In her order of inhibition, Judge Lucero through the Regional Trial Court-branch 31 of Calbayog City, asked the Supreme Court to allow her “perpetual inhibition” in all cases in which lawyer Alma Uy-Lampasa is involved.
Uy-Lampasa is the private prosecutor of the Aquino murder case who moved for Lucero’s voluntary inhibition immediately after the latter granted bail to the nine accused who were earlier dismissed from the police service due to their alleged complicity to the crime.
Lucero said that “since the inception of the case,” Uy-Lampasa “had repeatedly compromised the sub judice rule by accommodating interviews to various media outfits discussing not only the proceedings but also the merits of these cases.”
The judge said that Uy-Lampasa’s repeated public pronouncements about the case, via media interviews, “negatively impacted on the Court as it conditioned the minds of the supporters of mayor Aquino that there will be no other acceptable verdict on these cases other than her strong announcements of guilt of all accused…”
Lucero, in her order, stated that “she was barraged with online slanders and threats, subjecting her to public humiliation and compromising her life and integrity, and that of her family.”
The judge said that “she does not have the full freedom to decide freely the cases (of Uy-Lampasa) due to the latter’s propensity of bringing issues,” pending in court, “to the public.”
Denying the private prosecutor’s supposition, Lucero said she was never biased against the prosecution, and had even granted their motions earlier, such as allowing the following: 1) full authority to Uy-Lampasa to file all pleadings of the prosecution; 2) additional witnesses to testify on ballistic examinations; 3) more witnesses to identify the CCTV footage; and 4) ocular inspection of the mayor’s bullet-ridden van.
The judge further commented on the speculation of conflict of interest because her husband has been appointed department head of the city government by Mayor Raymund Uy, saying it is “false and misleading,” because the mayor was never impleaded as accused, or has never been privy to the case.
“It would be highly inappropriate if not patently malicious to drag someone (the mayor) in a criminal proceeding where no charges were filed against him,” said the judge, adding that her husband was working with the LGU since 2001, and that Mayor Uy named him department head only last year.
Besides, “why raise this issue now? Clearly this is just an afterthought to impute malice” to her eventual ruling, said the judge. Even then, she will still inhibit from the case “in order not to cast any tinge of partiality as imputed (by Uy-Lampasa) and to free the Court from any impression of bias,” said Lucero.
So far, there is no word yet from Uy-Lampasa regarding this although she had expected the judge to inhibit herself from the case. The High Court has yet to resolve this also by appointing a new judge to replace Lucero in handling the case. —-Miriam G. Desacada