SC urged to ax judge in ‘Payanig’ case
MANILA, Philippines—The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) has asked the Supreme Court to hold administratively liable the Pasig trial court judge who threw out the ejectment cases the PCGG had filed against 11 nonpaying commercial establishments occupying the sequestered Payanig sa Pasig property.
The PCGG asked the Supreme Court to dismiss from the judiciary Judge Joy Casihan-Dumlao, formerly of Pasig Metropolitan Trial Court Branch 72, for “gross ignorance of the law and knowingly rendering an unjust judgment.”
As caretaker of surrendered and sequestered ill-gotten properties of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his cronies, the PCGG lashed out at Dumlao for ruling on the ownership of the 18.5-hectare property in the Ortigas commercial district even if this was not called for in an ejectment case.
Dumlao was found to have been promoted to the Pasig Regional Trial Court Branch 262 on March 14, 2013, the day before she signed the decision.
The PCGG said it only received its copy of the decision on May 17, 2013, or two months after it was promulgated.
The government through the PCGG has been locked in a legal battle with the group of former Ilocos Gov. Luis “Chavit” Singson, which took over the lucrative property during the Arroyo administration.
From 2003 to June 2013, the PCGG said the government had lost more than P1 billion in rental income since most of the commercial establishments on the property had paid their rent to Blemp Commercial of the Philippines, a group identified with Singson’s camp.
The main case on the government’s ownership of the property remains unresolved in the Sandiganbayan and has yet to go to trial after more than two decades.
The PCGG said the judge ignored its evidence, including a Supreme Court decision in 2011 that upheld the government’s ownership of the disputed property.
The Payanig property (named after the carnival complex that used to stand on the site) is registered under the name of the Mid-Pasig Land Development Corp. (MPLDC), one of the corporations surrendered to the government by Marcos crony Jose Campos in 1986.
The PCGG filed ejectment cases in 2012 against City Golf Development Corp. and its 11 sub-lesses, namely, Transview Golf Phils., Uncle Moe’s Shawarma, Salome Baltazar, Paolo M. Olives, Innovative Bar and Restaurant, City Golf Plaza, Anne Sirikit Del Mundo, Barcino Corp., Geek’s New York Pizzeria, Tijuana’s Mexican Grill and T3J Multi Resources.
“The brazen dismissal by the respondent judge of not only one but all 11 cases filed by no less than the Republic of the Philippines amid the glaring evidence of its right to possess Payanig seethes of manifest bad faith, gross dishonesty and betrayal of her duly sworn oath to uphold truth and justice,” the PCGG and MPLDC said in their complaint.
