Caloocan judge faces new raps over injunction
And the battle continues.
Caloocan Vice Mayor Edgar Erice has filed fresh charges against the judge who issued a preliminary injunction that stopped the Department of the Interior and Local Government from implementing a suspension order on Mayor Enrico Echiverri and three other officials for an indefinite period.
The charges against Branch 125 Judge Dionisio Sison of the Caloocan Regional Trial Court were lodged Thursday at the Office of the Court Administrator of the Supreme Court.
It was Sison who issued the preliminary injunction in favor of Echiverri, city treasurer Evelina Garma, budget officer Jesusa Garcia and city accountant Edna Centeno on Jan. 20, giving them a reprieve from the suspension order that the DILG was set to serve early January.
The order stems from a complaint filed by Erice at the Office of the Ombudsman in July last year, where he has accused the four city officials of not remitting more than P340 million of city hall employees’ contributions to the Government Service Insurance System.
Joni Gonzales, Erice’s legal counsel, said they were compelled to file the administrative complaint against Sison after he violated several stipulations of the Rules of Court despite repeated reminders for him to comply with the same.
“We asked him to suspend the proceedings for the injunction because we still had pending motions in court. He refused,” Gonzales said over the phone.
Although Echiverri, Garma, Garcia and Centeno managed to seek temporary relief from the Court of Appeals in August of last year, the appellate court ruled on Jan. 2 that the antigraft body did not commit grave abuse of discretion when it ordered their suspension.
On Jan. 9, Executive Judge Eleanor Kwong of Branch 128 issued a three-day temporary restraining order on the implementation of the suspension order, citing the need to prevent “uncontrolled violence” among supporters of the mayor and the vice mayor who had barricaded the city hall.
Hours before the TRO lapsed on Jan. 12, Sison granted Echiverri’s request for its extension for 17 days, during which the court would determine whether the TRO could lead to a preliminary injunction.
The extension of the TRO was set to have lapsed on Sunday.
Gonzales said that aside from this, Sison’s issuance of the injunction was done “in haste,” because he decided in favor of the mayor’s camp even before several “documentary evidences” which were then in the custody of Branch 128 had not been transferred in his possession.
“What was his basis for issuing the injunction then?” Gonzales asked.
