Newspaper reporter Jomar Canlas has denied the claim of Lorenzo Gadon, the complainant in the impeachment case against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, that Associate Justice Teresita de Castro was his source in the allegations that the chief magistrate falsified a court document.
Appearing before the House justice committee hearing on Monday, Canlas, in a prepared statement, categorically denied that De Castro was his source about his story on Sereno allegedly manipulating a temporary restraining order (TRO) that De Castro drafted in 2013.
In the hearing last week, Gadon, in explaining his allegation against Sereno, said that the information on alleged TRO manipulation was intimated to him by Canlas.
But when asked by the lawmakers on Monday, Gadon said: “I really cannot remember now whether it was Canlas who have intimated it to me but he may have intimated it to me, your honor. “
“Well, it doesn’t change the fact that there was an article on the TRO. The existence of the incident of changing the contents of the TRO will be testified by Associate Justice Teresit De Castro herself. I really cannot remember because there are a lot of people giving me information that time,” Gadon added.
Canlas, when asked by the panel to name his source of the story, however, invoked the Republic Act 53 as amended by Republic Act 1477 also known as the Shield Law or Sotto Law.
The House hearing on the determination of probable cause to impeach Sereno is still ongoing as of posting. /kga