NBI files raps vs. RTC judge

The National Bureau of Investigation has filed at the Supreme Court administrative charges against Regional Trial Court judge Augustin Vestil for alleged gross ignorance of the law when he ordered the return of 24 right-hand-drive luxury cars that the NBI seized from a warehouse in a raid last year.

Former NBI-7 regional director Reynaldo Esmeralda accused Vestil for open defiance of established jurisprudence after issuing a court order over a case that is under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Bureau of Customs.

The case involves 24 RHD vehicles seized by the NBI from the warehouse of Sulpicio Jao at A.S. Fortuna Street in Banilad on January 15, last year.

The NBI citing Republic Act 8506 prohibiting the importation, operation and registration of RHD vehicles subsequently obtained a search warrant issued by judge Rogelio Lucmayon of the Municipal Trial Court in Cities, then went on with the raid of Jao's warehouse.

Jao moved to nullify the warrant used by the NBI in the operation but Lucmayon denied it prompting Jao to file a special civil action for certiorari, a case that was eventually raffled off to Vestil. Subsequently on July 25 that year, Vestil ordered the NBI to return the seized vehicles to Jao.

Esmeralda, in his three-page complaint filed before the SC's court administrator Presbitero Velasco, contended that Vestil's order contradicted the established rule that a trial court has no jurisdiction over a property that has been under a warrant of seizure and detention issued by Customs.

He claimed that Customs collector Maria Lourdes Mangaoang already forfeited the vehicles in favor of the government when Jao failed to appear in the seizure proceedings the BOC earlier held. Then on November 18 that same year, Vestil decided to divest his court from taking further cognizance of the case. But the judge contradicted himself when he later issued a writ of execution for his order to return the vehicles, said Esmeralda.

"It is hard to comprehend how he can order the issuance of a writ of execution even after his very issuance of an order divesting the court of taking further cognizance of the case," Esmeralda said in his complaint.

Esmeralda described Vestil's order as "highly anomalous" because the Office of the Solicitor General, which represented the Bureau of Customs, was not given sufficient time to take any action prior to the order. "Clearly, the actuation of judge Vestil amounted to bad faith," he said. Despite Vestil's order, however, the BOC has refused so far to return the vehicles.