THE Supreme Court (SC) has formally charged retired Court of Appeals (CA) Associate Justice Isaias Dicdican with gross misconduct for his alleged involvement in the November 2020 killing of a lawyer in Cebu City.
The decision was reached by the magistrates during their en banc session in Baguio City on Tuesday where they are currently on summer session.
“Acting on the memorandum of Court Administrator Raul Villanueva dated March 24, 2025, the SC formally charged retired Court of Appeals Associate Justice Isaias Dicdican with gross misconduct for his alleged involvement in the murder of Atty. Joey Luis B. Wee, a case which has been endorsed by the National Bureau of Investigation and/or the Office of the Prosecutor General,” SC spokesperson Camille Ting said in a press briefing in Baguio City.
Ting said the SC directed Dicdican to answer the gross misconduct charge within a “non-extendible period of 10 days from receipt of notice.”
If found guilty in the gross misconduct case, Dicdican faces disbarment and forfeiture of his retirement benefits.
“It’s an administrative case, he’s still a member of the Bar, so the ultimate penalty will be disbarment,” Ting said.
“Another penalty for the retired CA justice possibly is he won’t be able to receive his pension anymore,” she added.
Wee was shot and killed on November 23, 2020 at the ground floor of the building where his law office was located in Cebu City.
Four people were indicted by the Cebu City Prosecutors Office in 2021 for the murder of Wee, namely John Raymond Suarez, Randy Palparan, Manuelito Camacho, and an unidentified man.
They were implicated by Fausto Edgar Peralta, a retired military officer and confessed gunman, who had been charged in court after his arrest in December 8, 2020 by NBI agents in Cabuyao City, Laguna.
Peralta told investigators they were allegedly paid by former Criminal Investigation and Detection Group chief in Western Visayas Col. Edwin Layese to kill Wee.
Layese was arrested in January 2021 and has also been charged in court.
National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Cebu Regional Director Rennan Oliva yesterday told reporters that Layese have pointed to Dicdican as the mastermind in the killing of Wee.
“Nag execute yung contractor sa killing ni Atty. Wee na si retired Army colonel Edwin Layese ng affidavit pointing to the subject as the one who contacted him (The contractor in the killing of Atty. Wee, retired Army colonel Edwin Layese, executed an affidavit pointing to the subject as the one who contacted him),” Oliva said.
“According to Layese in his affidavit, si justice daw ang nag utos (According to Layese in his affidavit, it was the justice who ordered his [Wee] killing,” he added.
Oliva said Wee and Dicdican were opposing counsels in a case that the former handled, though he declined to provide further details.
Prosecutor General Richard Anthony Fadullon said Dicdican’s alleged involvement in the killing is currently undergoing “preliminary investigation.”
A copy of Layese’s extrajudicial confession pointed to Dicdican’s involvement in the killing.
“The person who ordered me to canvass and look for a hitman was retired Court of Appeals Justice Isaias Dicdican and the one who financed the killing was a certain Ms. Riza/Risa, who was an adverse party litigant in a case that Atty. Wee handled,” he said.
He added that one of the accused whom the NBI identified as Randy Benito Palparan, alias Jake Agustin, can also attest to Dicdican’s role as he supposedly gave him the telephone number of the retired justice after they talked for direct communications or instructions.
Layese said the original contract price offered by Dicdican and Riza/Risa to kill Wee was P1 million, but it later increased to P1.5 million.
He said he delivered P500, 000 of the amount to Palparan on November 16, 2020.
He said that when he met with Palparan’s group on November 22, 2020, the latter reminded him of the additional P500,000 of the original P1 million contract price, adding that Palparan told him Wee is a “hard target” since he is a lawyer.
He said he relayed the information to Dicdical who told him he would inform Riza/Risa.
“Around 6 p.m. of November 22, 2020, I received the additional P500, 000 in cash from Justice Dicdican at his residence,” Layese said.
Layese said Dicdican allegedly told him that Riza/Risa held a grudge against Wee after she lost in a case and was ordered to pay a huge amount of money in favor of Wee’s client.
He added that Dicdican likewise supposedly told him that negotiations to lower the amount failed.
He also said that Dicdican purportedly confided these information to him in the latter’s residence on November 16, 2020 at Guadalupe Heights Village in Cebu City.
Layese also said he heard Dicdican reportedly talk to Riza/Risa on the phone via loudspeaker of her desire to get Wee killed before she left for Australia.
“This also happened at the same time I was there at Justice Dicdican’s home,” he said.
Layese said he got to know Dicdican in 2013 through the latter’s girlfriend which, he added, is the sister of his girlfriend.
“I looked up to him as a father and as a mentor. I respect him a lot. Since then we have become close friends. I asked him advise on legal matters and I even drove for him on going to Dalaguete to Cebu City, and vice versa and served to protect him,” he said.
