SC justices stand up to Binay bullying

Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and Associate Justices Antonio Carpio and Martin Villarama should be hailed for standing up to the bullying tactics of Makati Mayor Junjun Binay.

Binay wanted the justices to inhibit themselves in the hearing of his petition suspending him from office for six months.

The Office of the Ombudsman suspended Binay while he is being investigated in connection with the allegedly overpriced Makati City Hall Building II.

But the Court of Appeals—probably bullied or whatever by Binay and his father, Vice President Jojo Binay—lifted the Ombudsman’s suspension order, forcing the antigraft office to take the case to the high court.

Binay says Sereno is biased against him for setting aside a condonation doctrine which states that an elected official is free from administrative liabilities for past mistakes on account of his reelection.

Carpio’s inhibition is being sought because he is reportedly a first cousin of Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales.

The mayor says Villarama supposedly got in touch with lawyers from the Office of the Ombudsman, citing the justice’s statement during oral arguments.

Junjun Binay and his father Jojo met their match in the three justices when their petition to have them inhibit from the suspension case was turned down.

If Sereno, Carpio and Villarama were bullied by the Binays into inhibiting themselves from the case, who would have remained to hear it since Supreme Court Associate Justices Diosdado Peralta, Presbiterio Velasco and Arturo Brion had earlier inhibited themselves?

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Filing the petition was one of the tactics obviously employed by the Binays to delay the investigation into one of the biggest overpricing deals of a government project in recent memory.

The cost of the project was P2.3 billion, when the parking building could have been built at less than P500 million.

Delaying the investigation until after the 2016 election would give Junjun Binay time to campaign for reelection.

Jojo and Junjun know that their claim of innocence is untenable since the evidence against them is overwhelming.

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I heard that Supt. Victor Pagulayan, commander of Station 6 of the Quezon City Police District (QCPD), is planning to file a libel case against me.

It’s probably in reaction to a story in this space that he allegedly extorted P200 million from the parents of a 19-year-old boy his men caught while buying “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride) early Friday morning from a policeman who had posed as a drug pusher.

If that’s the case, then go ahead.

I can present Deputy Director General Leonardo Espina, officer-in-charge of the Philippine National Police (PNP), as my witness.

I had informed Espina on Friday, June 12, that negotiations with a price tag were then ongoing for the boy’s release

I told the mother—who had approached me for help—to delay giving a P200-million bribe until Monday as Espina and this columnist would be setting a trap.

But the boy’s father, who had gone to the police station on Saturday, gave in to the demand after he heard his son whimpering in a room inside the station, probably being punched in the stomach.