Carabuena posts bail anew

Screengrab from Youtube.com

MANILA, Philippines—The motorist shown in a video assaulting a Metropolitan Manila Development Authority traffic enforcer avoided being arrested a second time by posting bail at a Quezon City court on Wednesday.

Robert Blair Carabuena, accompanied by his father and his lawyer Caesar Ortega, arrived at 10 a.m. at the Quezon City metropolitan trial court branch 42 to post bail of P24,000 for his provisional liberty.

Branch 42 clerk of court Raymond Blanco told the INQUIRER that the P12,000 bail Carabuena posted previously had been forfeited in favor of the government when he failed to appear on Feb. for his scheduled arraignment on a charge of direct assault upon an agent of a person in authority.

“He (Carabuena) paid P24,000 for his bail because the judge doubled the amount originally set,” Blanco said, adding that his being present at hearings of the case was one of the conditions for his being allowed to post bail.

As neither Carabuena nor his lawyer was present at last week’s arraignment, Judge Juris Dilinila-Callanta of the Quezon City Metropolitan Trial Court’s Branch 42 directed that Ortega explain why he should not be cited in contempt and ordered the issuance of a warrant for the arrest of Carabuena. The judge then ordered that the new bail be doubled.

The accused was supposed to be arraigned last week for his assault on MMDA constable Saturnino Fabros over a traffic violation.

Blanco said that Carabuena’s posting of bail would render moot and academic Ortega’s request for the court to lift the arrest warrant. “Judge Callanta would be issuing a recall order for the arrest warrant,” he added.

The clerk of court told the Inquirer that the hearing set on Friday might focus on Callanta’s show-cause order for Ortega instead. He said that Carabuena had promised the court he would attend the March 7 rescheduled arraignment and pretrial hearing.

Ortega apologized to Judge Callanta, saying in a motion that his absence as well as his client’s at what was supposed to be the arraignment last Feb. 7 was not meant to show disrespect nor disobedience.

He said that he had a prior commitment at a Manila court while Carabuena was suffering from gastroenteritis that left him in a “very uncomfortable and painful state.” The lawyer claimed that the accused ran the risk of embarrassing himself inside the courtroom had he attended the hearing.

The direct assault charge against Carabuena stemmed from an August 11, 2012 incident in which he attacked Fabros at the intersection of Capitol Hills Drive and Katipunan Avenue in Old Balara. A passing TV news staffer caught the assault on video.