ON TARGET
Law professor-student love affair
By Ramon TulfoPhilippine Daily Inquirer
In our justice system, rich and powerful litigants have a big edge over their poor opponents.
What the late President Ramon Magsaysay said that “those who have less in life should have more in law” is just lip service.
When money talks, even the judges listen and defer to the “highest bidder.”
I am not accusing the Court of Appeals justices who ruled in favor of the Reyes brothers—former Palawan Gov. Joel and Coron Mayor Marjo—of receiving bribe money, but the public perception is that money and influence “talked.”
(There is a whale of a difference between accusing somebody outright of being a thief, and saying that people think he is a thief)
The appellate court invalidated the findings of a second panel created by Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to reinvestigate the January 2011 murder in Puerto Princesa City of environmentalist and radio commentator Gerry Ortega.
The second panel’s findings led to murder charges filed against the Reyes brothers and the issuance of arrest warrants against them.
The CA decision may eventually lead to the quashing of the arrest warrants.
There is talk that the brothers have spent a huge amount of money on their case and pulled some strings in the appellate court.
One of the appellate court justices is a close relative of the accused, according to a court insider.
* * *
And so, the search for the mastermind or masterminds in the murder of the famous radio commentator in Palawan goes on.
Joel and Marjo Reyes were the alleged masterminds in Ortega’s murder.
Now that the Court of Appeals has said that the findings of the DOJ second panel were not valid, the court—in effect—said the Reyes brothers were not involved in Ortega’s murder.
The first DOJ panel exonerated the Reyes brothers, and there were talks that “money talked” in the decision.
* * *
A law professor and managing partner of a prominent Makati law firm is in trouble if he doesn’t settle with his estranged wife.
The wife came to see me at my “Isumbong mo kay Tulfo” office to complain that the hubby has ceased supporting their two kids, aged 2 and 9.
She said the cause of the break-up is a pretty girl who is her husband’s student in law school.
The husband is a professor in two very prominent law schools.
The 38-year-old woman—he is 40 years old—threatens to divulge all her husband’s “case-fixing” activities to the media.
She described her husband as a “bagman” of his law firm.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
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Tags: bribery , column , Judiciary , Metro , Ortega slay case , Ramon Tulfo
