Lawyer: Ailing Carabuena risked ‘embarrassment’ if he showed up

Apologizing for his absence and that of his client at last week’s hearing, the lawyer of Robert Blair Carabuena, the motorist charged with assaulting a traffic constable last year, asked a Quezon City court on Tuesday to withdraw the arrest warrant issued against his client.

Citing conflicts in his schedule and his client’s ongoing treatment for gastroenteritis, Caesar Ortega asked that their absence during Carabuena’s supposed arraignment on Feb. 7 be excused on humanitarian grounds.

Aside from issuing the warrant on Carabuena, Metropolitan Trial Court Judge Juris Dilinila-Callanta earlier ordered Ortega to show cause why he should not be cited in contempt for missing the arraignment.

Callanta also doubled the P12,000 bail earlier imposed on the accused, who is charged with assaulting Saturnino Fabros of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority in a traffic altercation in Quezon City last year. The incident was caught on video and quickly went viral.

In a motion for reconsideration, Ortega apologized to the judge, saying “the absence of the accused was not intended to show disrespect, neither was it occasioned by disobedience to the lawful orders of this honorable court.

“Such absence was caused by the fact that the accused was undergoing treatment for gastroenteritis,” he said.

Ortega went on to describe Carabuena’s condition in detail: “For the information of the presiding judge, who apparently has not yet suffered from this kind of illness, a person suffering from this malady experiences severe stomach ache, accompanied by loose bowel movement.

“Needless to state, the accused was in a very uncomfortable and painful state. Aside from the pain and extreme discomfort, the accused had to contend with the potential embarrassment of ‘dirtying’ his underwear and pants while inside the courtroom,” he said.

In explaining his own absence, the lawyer claimed that he had a prior commitment to conduct the cross-examination of a witness in a Manila court that same morning. Failure to attend that other hearing would be tantamount to waiving the cross-examination, he said.

“Such failure was not intentional, not disrespectful of this honorable court and presiding judge, and not contumacious in character. It was occasioned purely by the foregoing circumstances,” the lawyer stressed.

Callanta set the hearing on Ortega’s motion on Feb. 15. Carabuena’s arraignment was reset to March 7.