DOJ checking ex-solon turned CA justice

JUSTICE Secretary Leila de Lima on Friday said she would check if Court of Appeals Justice Danton Q. Bueser was a member of the special court division that issued the order for the AMLC to scrutinize Napoles’ bank accounts and the other division handling Napoles’ petition to overturn the Department of Justice resolution finding probable cause to charge her with serious illegal detention.

According to the COA special audit on congressional pork barrel releases from 2007 to 2009, Bueser, a former Laguna congressman, had allocated P9.6 million to the Philippine Environment and Economic Development Association and P9.8 million to the Aaron Foundation Philippines.

The two NGOs are included in the 82 NGOs that were recipients of congressional pork and which the COA report found to be dubious and questionable, although not among the 10 linked to Napoles.

Buese denied that he had endorsed any of his pork barrel funds to the two NGOs and questioned the authenticity of his supposed signatures in the documents submitted by the two.

According to the CA website, Bueser was sworn in as CA Associate Justice on July 16, 2009. He obtained his law degree from the College of Law of the Far Eastern University in 1975. The same year he placed 17th in the Bar examinations with a grade of 84.35%. After law school, he was a Special Assistant to the Secretary of Labor in 1976.  Bueser also served as a Research Attorney and later became a Trial Attorney for the Central Bank of the Philippines from 1976-1988. He was also a Voluntary Arbitrator for the Department of Labor in Manila from 1989-1998.

Before he joined the Court of Appeals, Bueser represented the 3rd District of Laguna in the 11th, 12th and 13th Congress from 1998-2007 where he became the Assistant Majority Leader of the 12th Congress; Deputy Majority Leader of the 13th Congress; a member of the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal in the 11th Congress and that of the Commission on Appointments during the 13th Congress and served as Chairman of the Committee on Poverty Alleviation in the 12th Congress. He was also the former Vice-Mayor of San Pablo City, Laguna from 1992-1998. /Inquirer with CDN Research