Supreme Court fines abusive Makati judge

MANILA, Philippines – The Supreme Court (SC) fined a retired Makati judge P40,000 for sending to jail for five days and imposing a P1,000 fine on a driver who occupied his parking space in 2005.

In deciding against retired judge Francisco Ibay, the SC said he abused his authority when he cited for contempt Valeriano Nuñez without any valid legal basis.

“The power to declare a person in contempt of court should be exercised judiciously and sparingly,” read the decision, quoting an earlier SC ruling in the case of Sison v. Caoibes, Jr. “A judge should never allow himself to be moved by pride, prejudice, passion, or pettiness in the performance of his duties.”

The SC deducted the P40,000 fine from the retirement benefits of Ibay, who retired in August 2007.

Court records show Ibay summoned Nuñez, a driver at the Makati City engineering department, on April 4, 2005 to explain why he had occupied the parking space reserved for him at the Makati City Hall.

Nuñez apologized to Ibay and explained he was not aware that the space was reserved for the judge.

However, Ibay refused to accept Nuñez’s apology and found him guilty of direct contempt and sentenced him to five days in jail and fined him P1,000.

In his defense, Ibay said he had placed a marker with his name at the space allotted to him.

He said he reports to work early in the morning to accomplish many tasks expected of him as the third-ranked judge for 2004 among the city’s regional trial court judges.

Ibay said similar incidents have occurred in the past: three persons had caused water to overflow in his chambers, which damaged his computers; another driver also occupied his parking slot; and an electrician mistakenly switched off the electrical outlets in his courtroom.

By the time Nuñez had filed his complaint, Ibay had already cited six persons for contempt.

Ibay had been previously sanctioned by the SC due to complaints filed by other people he had cited for contempt on grounds that they had disrupted his performance of official duties.

The decision was written by Associate Justice Diosdado Peralta. – Edu Punay