longcuts

It was a big surprise last Monday when we got the report that RTC Judge Flux Baluma has inhibited himself from hearing the ROT case filed by a group of lawyers against the city government and a private consortium.
Reports said the inhibition was anchored on his filial relations with one of the petitioners, city kagawad Djingo Rama.
Djingo is reportedly a relative of Baluma’s deceased wife.
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When I talked to Judge Flux later on the day, he said this inhibition was exclusive of the case only. That is, because of the presence of Djingo Rama.
In all other cases, Judge Flux will not inhibit himself, he said.
I cannot do anything because this is mandatory inhibition, he added.
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Naturally, there were skeptics.
Why only now, some said.
The issue was not raised before, not from the complainants or the respondents.
And besides, there are reports that Djingo Rama does not consider himself as one of the complainants. It was probably a freak legal accident that his name was included as a complainant but the complaint does not bear his signature.
If this is true – that Djingo Rama is not a complainant in that case – then there is no basis for inhibiting from the case.
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In his radio program yesterday, City Mayor Dan Neri Lim said he would elevate the issue to the Deputy Court Administrator of the Supreme Court.
He felt the actuations of Judge Flux breached the acceptable judicial standards.
Bears watching how the Supreme Court will deal on this issue.
If memory serves, the last time the city mayor raised an issue against Judge Flux to the Supreme Court, a judicial audit was later conducted.
The Family Court was later transferred from Judge Flux’s sala to the sala of Judge Venancio Amila. That was after the judicial audit.
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The scathing letter of the city mayor to Judge Flux was partly read last Saturday during his Ang Mayor sa Dakbayan radio program.
To my reckoning, the focal point has something to do with the issue of honorarium.
He said that Judge Flux tried to picture himself as a saint by smearing the act of granting honorarium to judges.
“For the record,” the mayor said, “it was not the honorable judge who refused to receive his honorarium from the city government. It was the city government that discontinued the granting of his honorarium over his deplorable handling of cases in his sala.”
He also said that if Judge Flux was so averse to receiving honorarium, he ought to explain if he does not religiously claim his honorarium from the province. The mayor said Judge Flux cannot be averse to the honoraria from the city and be excited about the honoraria from the province.
Judge Flux has an answer to this.
He said that he is not averse to receiving the honorarium from the province because the governor does not intervene in his judicial functions.
Meaning, that he thought the city mayor has intervened in his sala.
He was referring to that controversial child abuse case involving a prominent citizen of the city and a little boy which was lodged in his sala at that time that it was still a Family Court.
Judge Flux resented what he called the “intervention” of the mayor in that particular case.
The mayor explained that he assisted the victim because of what he called a double whammy.
One, the boy was victimized. And two, the delay in the resolution of the case was traumatic on his part.
Because of the long delay, the mayor took the cudgels and did what he thought was best to hasten the proceedings of the case.
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The mayor also said that Judge Flux claimed in his inhibition order that the grant of honorarium by the city government should not be gauged and should not tamper judicial independence as judges have their sworn duties to uphold.
“It is tragic that in his vain attempt to suggest that the undersigned is using the honorariums to influence the judges, he has actually opened all the judges receiving honorarium from the city government to suspicion, if not public contempt for giving up their judicial independence,” the mayor said.
Judge Flux confirmed that following the dirty exchange both in print and on the airlanes, there was a meeting among the RTC judges.
He said one of the issues discussed was about the issue involving the “chamber to chamber” distribution of allowances from the city.
The other RTC judges naturally expressed their disappointment over the way the issue about the honorarium was played up. There was a discussion and Judge Flux said everything was threshed out in that meeting.
And they are still friends, he emphasized.
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Meanwhile, the city treasurer has sent a “notice of collection” to the Bohol Chronicle Radio Corporation thru my kumpare Peter Dejaresco.
According to city treasurer Visitacion Acero, the Bohol Chronicle has not paid business taxes on the year 2003 and the years prior to that.
Peter told me yesterday evening that they would answer the notice of collection tomorrow, Monday.
This “conflict” is getting dirty.
I dunno how this will turn up but for sure there are already heavy toll on both sides.
Nobody is winning. And nobody is losing either. The barrage is continuing and the number of casualty is certain to escalate.
Some people are having a grand time listening to the daily verbal barrage, true to form that “basta intriga gani, moangay gyod ang mga tawo.”
But others are not pleased. They are complaining because instead of harnessing productivity and good will, this is divisive, foments hostility and inimical to progress.
Well, this is democracy at work here. Everybody feels he has a right to say something on anything. Everybody feels his opinion is important and he has to say it as a matter of right.
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Anyway, Longcuts hopes somebody will be able to worm his way into the hearts and minds of the city mayor and the Dejarescos and find a common ground to forge a mutually-accepted ceasefire.
That would be the day.
More when we return, stay tuned for more.