The Price of Honor
My kind of Filipino
I was fortunate to run into Court of Appeals Justice Jose L. Sabio, Jr., today at Robinson’s, at Limketkai Mall today where Robinson’s Manager Rotarian Danny Camat took a photo of us together.
Judge Sabio recently reported that a litigant in a case he was presiding over offered him a bribe. Before trying to bribe Judge Sabio, the litigants in the case should have done a little research. Sabio is a member of the Philippine Judicial Academy’s Ethics and Judicial Conduct Department and the Ateneo Law School’s Pre-Bar review on Legal and Judicial Ethics. Duh!
The case is in which the bribe was offered was between Meralco (Manila Electric Company) and Government Service Insurance System (GSIS). The president of GSIS is Winston Garcia, who I met at the Cagayan de Oro airport last week, on July 31, 2008, when he visited the local GSIS office, but shucks, I was unable to get a photo taken of Winston Garcia and myself together. He had a pretty hard-core security detail, but I was able to get a photo of him.
GSIS is a major shareholder/investor in Meralco which is run by the Lopez family.
Apparently, GSIS was trying to wrest control of Meralco from the Lopez family. I’m not real familiar with the case. I have a life, a family, and a business to run and cannot afford the time to know all news cases like this that have little effect on my every day life, and which I have absolutely no influence over whatsoever.
Apparently, one of the parties offered Judge Sabio 10 million pesos to recuse (inhibit) himself from the case. He not only refused, he wrote a letter of complaint to the appellate court’s presiding justice, Conrado Vasquez, Jr. where Sabio said someone from the Meralco side offered him the bribe to pass the case on to another justice.
I am not very fond of Philippine Electric companies, as is evident from a couple of blog posts from few months ago about Cepalco and Republic Act No. 7832, and their propensity to sue over The Anti-electricity and Electric Transmission Lines/Materials Pilferage Act of 1994.
To me, it looks like Sabio will be taken off the case now because of his letter complaining about the bribe, which is just what Meralco wanted. And Meralco saves 10 million pesos. They get to have their cake and eat it, too. Such is the price of honor.