FORMER SENATE PRESIDENT JOVITO Salonga on Saturday confirmed the purported corruption in the Court of Appeals and said reforms were urgently needed.

“It is true that there is bribery in the appellate court,” the 88-year-old founder of the judiciary watchdog group Bantay Katarungan told the Inquirer. “It should be stopped. The bribery should be exposed. It should be the beginning of legal reforms in our system of justice.”

Salonga, mentor to a number of magistrates and a frequent amicus curiae of the Supreme Court, made the remarks in reaction to the exchange of accusations of bribery and corruption between Associate Justice Jose Sabio Jr. and businessman Francis de Borja in connection with the case involving Manila Electric Co. and the Government Service Insurance System.

Asked whether Sabio’s claim of a P10-million offer for him to inhibit himself from the case was a positive development, Salonga said: “Yes. Undoubtedly.”

He said Sabio’s revelations in connection with the case that was resolved in favor of Meralco were yet another indication of the need to reform the appellate and other courts.

Fr. Joaquin Bernas, dean emeritus of the Ateneo de Manila School of Law, told the Inquirer that the allegations exchanged by Sabio and De Borja “will not do the judiciary any good, but the investigation of the Supreme Court will.”

The Court of Appeals en banc decided on Thursday to raise to the Supreme Court the “propriety” of certain justices’ actions vis-à-vis the Meralco vs GSIS case. The high court is scheduled to deliberate on the matter on Tuesday.

Notorious justices

Salonga said that since 2000, Bantay Katarungan had exposed instances of corruption “and underscored the need for reforms in our system of justice.”

“We have written to the Judicial and Bar Council and, from time to time, the appointing power, on the need for reforms in specific instances not only in the Court of Appeals but also in the other courts,” he said.

Salonga refused to name names, saying he wanted to spare the Inquirer and himself from being sued for libel. But he said the justices concerned were “notorious.”

How corruption works in the appellate court and the personalities involved are known to Bantay Katarungan’s lawyer-members, according to Salonga.

He said even the law students doing volunteer monitoring for the watchdog group “know who these people are.”

A recent victory for Bantay Katarungan was the Supreme Court’s rejection of the appointment of Sandiganbayan Justice Gregory Ong to the tribunal in 2007.

‘Honest man’

It was Bantay Katarungan and Salonga’s other nongovernment organization, Kilosbayan, that questioned Ong’s appointment on account of questions on his citizenship.

Bernas, a constitutionalist and also an adviser to the Supreme Court in important cases, begged off from commenting on the purported bribery attempt involving Sabio and De Borja.

“I don’t know the facts,” he said on the phone.

Bernas did say that while he did not know De Borja, “I consider [Sabio] to be an honest man.”

Sabio teaches legal ethics at the Ateneo Law School and has received support from students and other members of the faculty.

Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, an opposition lawmaker and a former law school dean, said: “This may be an initial black eye for the Court of Appeals ... but if [Sabio] just remained silent, nothing will happen.”

Sabio also hails from Cagayan de Oro, where he once served as a regional trial court judge.

He also taught law at the Ateneo de Cagayan-Xavier University, where he gained prominence as a “terror” professor.

One of his former students, lawyer Edgardo Uy, told a Cagayan de Oro newspaper that Sabio should be trusted for his disclosures.

“I believe he is speaking the truth. I’ve known him since my student days. That’s why I know he is honest,” Uy said.

Rodolfo Meñes, president of the Oro Chamber of Commerce and Industry, described Sabio as a “good lawyer.”

“I am surprised that he is being dragged into this controversy. I know him only professionally, but I know him as an honest man,” Meñes told the Inquirer.

Preventive suspension

On Friday, a former Malabon City judge asked the Supreme Court to order the preventive suspension of all appellate court justices involved in the Meralco vs GSIS case.

In a “verified complaint-letter affidavit,” Florentino Floro Jr. said these justices should be investigated for gross misconduct, gross ignorance of the law, manifest undue interest and violations of the Codes of Judicial Conduct and of Professional Responsibility, among others.

Floro said the high court should once and for all “cleanse the entire Court of Appeals.”

“The undersigned, in his conscience, knocks at the doors of this court, because of the shocking events which rocked the very foundations of our entire judicial system: CA justices accusing each other, not in courts, but in the media. This is too much. This is the darkest hour of the CA since its creation,” he said.

Floro named as respondents in the case Sabio and Associate Justices Bienvenido Reyes, Apolinario Bruselas, Myrna Dimaranan-Vidal and Vicente Roxas, as well as CA Presiding Justice Conrado Vasquez Jr.

He said the high court should appoint one of its retired associate justices as an independent investigator and a special prosecutor to look into the matter.

Headline maker

Floro himself made headlines when he was ordered dismissed from the judiciary in 2006 by the Supreme Court.

The high court declared him mentally unfit after he admitted to having “psychic visions,” having dwarfs as friends and being an “angel of death” who could inflict pain on people, especially those he perceived to be corrupt.

Undeterred, Floro filed cases against judiciary officials he claimed to have violated the law. In April 2007, he filed administrative charges against what he called the CA’s “Dirty Dozen,” whom he accused of corruption.

He said those found guilty should be dismissed from government service and disbarred. With reports from Jerome Aning in Manila; Ma. Cecilia Rodriguez, Inquirer Mindanao