Belo loses bid to revive perjury charge vs former patient

Dr. Vicki Belo. FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — A Quezon City court has dismissed a petition by cosmetic surgeon Vicki Belo to reconsider the dropping by another judge of a perjury charge against a former patient who had sued her for an allegedly botched buttocks implant.

Judge Germano Francisco Legaspi of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court’s Branch 77 said in a ruling dated Dec. 16, 2013 but released only on Monday that Judge Nadine Jessica Corazon Fama of the local Metropolitan Trial Court did not commit grave abuse of discretion when she approved the dropping of the perjury charge against businesswoman Josefina Norcio and denied Belo’s appeal for a judicial determination of probable cause.

Belo, in a petition for certiorari, had questioned two orders issued by Fama on October 31, 2012 and March 25, 2013. The first granted the withdrawal of the perjury information sought by the city prosecutor as its filing had been done without authority and the second, dismissing her appeal for the judge to determine probable cause in the case.

Legaspi ruled that Belo’s petition naming Fama and Norcio respondents was “bereft of merit.”

The judge said that based on court records, the information for perjury was filed on Aug. 17, 2012 by  prosecutor Fabinda Delos Santos in the MTC’s branch 38 without the approval of city prosecutor Donald Lee and, thus, it had to be withdrawn.

He cited a provision of the revised rules of court which requires the “prior written authority or approval of the city prosecutor before the filing of an information in court.” Legaspi ruled, “The public respondent (Fama) correctly granted the public prosecutor’s motion to withdraw the information on Oct. 31, 2012.”

Likewise, Legaspi said that without any criminal information, as an effect of its withdrawal, it was proper for Judge Fama to have denied Belo’s motion for judicial determination of probable cause.

“Any determination or assessment to be made by the public respondent (Fama) after the withdrawal of the information will be pointless, if not irregular,” he stressed, adding that Belo’s request for the judge to determine probable cause had been denied based on the withdrawal of the information.

Legaspi further pointed out that Fama had approved the withdrawal of the criminal information because it had been filed without the authority and approval of the city prosecutor who had already found no probable cause to warrant Norcio’s trial for perjury.

“All told, the public respondent did not gravely abuse her discretion when she issued the two challenged orders,” he said, pointing out that grave abuse of discretion entails arbitrary or despotic exercise of power out of passion or prejudice which results in evasion or refusal to perform a positive duty mandated by law.

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