THE Supreme Court en banc has ordered a former spokesperson of the former National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) to answer an indirect contempt petition filed against her by a group of lawyers.
The tribunal directed Lorraine Marie Badoy to comment on the petition “within a non-extendible period of 15 days from notice.”
The contempt case was filed by deans of law schools law deans and lawyers belonging to the Movement against Disinformation over Badoy’s remarks against Judge Marlo Magdoza-Malagar, of the Manila Regional Court Branch 19, who dismissed government’s bid to declare the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army, as terror organizations.
The petitioners said Badoy’s verbal attack on Malagar aims to “assault and humiliate” the latter after she rendered the decision. They also said the “vicious assault” on Malagar has alarmed and shaken the judges and lawyers so much so that several law groups such as the Philippine Bar Association (PBA), the Philippine Judges Association, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, and Hukom Inc. described the online vilification and red-tagging as constituting “endangerment” of a member of the judiciary and an “attack on the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary.”
The petitioners said Badoy’s propensity to belittle and ridicule the judiciary is “downright contemptuous” and showed that there is nothing that would stop her mockery and condemnation of the justice system until she is held liable by the SC.
They asked the High Court to penalize Badoy with imprisonment of up to six months for indirect contempt and fine of up P30,000.
Badoy in a Facebook post days after September 21 decision, accused Malagar of “lawyering” for the CPP-NPA when she ruled that rebellion and political crimes are not acts of terrorism.
She made a hypothetical scenario of killing the judge out of her political belief; accused the judge’s husband, the chancellor of University of the Philippines Cebu, of being a CPP-NPA member; and said she will create an organization that will bomb offices of “corrupt judges who are friends of terrorists.”
The SC has ordered Badoy to explain why she should not be cited in contempt of court for her statements against Malagar.
The High Court also issued a stern warning against those who malign and maliciously attack judges and their families.
Among the petitioners are Rico Domingo, former PBA president; Ray Paolo Santiago. executive director of the Ateneo Human Rights Center; Antonio “Tony” La Viña, former dean of the Ateneo de Manila University School of Law; Soledad Deriquito-Mawis, dean of the College of Law of the Lyceum University; Anna Maria Abad, dean of the Adamson University College of Law; and Rodel Taton, dean of the Graduate School of Law of San Sebastian College-Recoletos.
