Answer 2nd contempt rap, Badoy told
THE Supreme Court required anew former spokesperson for the government’s anti-communist task force Lorraine Badoy to answer her second contempt case for alleged red-tagging of Manila Regional Trial Court Judge Marlo Magdoza-Malagar and other members of the judiciary.
This was after the high court en banc required Badoy to file her comment on the second petition within a non-extendible period of 15 days upon receipt of the notice.
In a 35-page Urgent Petition for Indirect Contempt, legal luminaries, law school deans, and private law practitioners pointed out that Badoy’s propensity to foment hate and violence against members of the judiciary was contemptuous.
“Clearly, this latest display of Respondent Badoy-Partosa’s propensity to belittle and ridicule the entire Philippine Judiciary is downright contemptuous and is undoubtedly an indication that there is absolutely nothing that would put an end to the Respondent’s relentless invite to mockery and condemnation of our judicial system – unless she is finally held liable and accountable for her actions, ” the petition read in part.
The petitioners were: Atty. Rico Domingo, Dean Antonio Gabriel La Viña, Dean Ma. Soledad Deriquito-Mawis, Dean Anna Maria Abad, Dean Rodel Taton, Atty. Artemio Calumpong, Atty. Christianne Grace Salonga, Atty. Ray Paolo Santiago, and Atty. Ayn Ruth Tolentino-Azarcon.
“Our prayer is for the citation of former Usec. Badoy-Partosa and the penalty is not more than P30, 000 fine or imprisonment of not more than 6 months. It’s not the penalty that we’re talking about here. It is the gravity and the ominous danger in the independence of the judicial body or judicial system. Otherwise, there’ll be chaos in this country, ” Domingo, one of the petitioners, said in an interview during the filing of the petition.
Also, Domingo asked Badoy if she had evidence to back up her claim that Magdoza-Malagar was lawyering for the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA).
“The posts are very self-explanatory, when you talk about Judge Malagar to [passionately and lawyering for the CPP-NPA that her decision is shameless and unprincipled, and that the judge is a friend to the CPP-NPA-NDF.”
“And she is wearing a helmet as thick as the helmet of the urban operatives of the CPP-NPA-NDF and even including the husband of the judge. That the husband is a cadre of the CPP-NPA. Where is that? Does she have any proof of that?” Domingo said.
