Monday, September 24, 2007

Corruption probe by the Supreme Court

I just heard the news that lady Supreme Court justice Consuelo Ynares-Santiago has been dragged in what appears to be a corruption probe conducted by the Supreme Court itself.
The reports are still sketchy at this point, but from what I heard from the news there was an attempt to deliver reportedly ten million pesos to her office at the Supreme Court.
The report I received was that a staff of the lady justice brought a box containing the money to the lady justice's office.
The justice reportedly fired the staff for bringing the box to the office.
The Supreme Court en banc is to investigate this incident, upon the proddings of the Justice Santiago herself, reports say.
As a practitioner, I must say it is very easy to charge and accuse judges and justices with corruption, or receiving grease money or bribes, or whatever you call it.
But what somestimes happens is that the judges and justices are just made scapegoats by unscrupulous fixers.
This is not to say, that there are no corrupt judges or justices.
Precisely, the Supreme Court continues to crack down against corrupt judges or justices.
In Makati City very recently, where I linger almost every morning, a judge reported to her office, only to find out that she had already been ordered barred from entering her own sala and office.
To the judge's shock, security guards were already placed in her office, upon orders of the Supreme Court, with orders not to allow her to enter.
This was according to some judiciary personnel in Makati.
When word of this incident circulated, there were some in the legal community who observed that T.R.O.'s suddenly became something difficult to procure.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Comments:

Mr. Editor,

Common sense tells us that ten million pesos placed in a box would not fit in a small box. And, the box used must be big enough to accommodate the amount alleged.( Ten Million Pesos)

Security personnel check hand-carries before they are allowed in, including those packages hand-carried by persons wearing a badge or ID. The guards would not simply ignore checking, because of the possibility that the box may contain explosives, unless prior arrangement was made by a recognized authority to exempt checking a particular box consigned to a particular officer, by the consignee's request.

Security procedure requires that the sender or courier registers at the front desk to log the delivery, and to record where and to whom the package is consigned to.

Bombs could be sent to Judges and blow them up to pieces, if the procedure is not carried out with equal regularity.

With that tentative scenario, as you roughly described it, the sender and the receiver had advance knowledge of the shipment, henceforth, one could speculate the rest of the story.