‘No proof Pasay judge ordered staff to receive P6 million bribe’

MANILA, Philippines — There was no sufficient evidence that would prove that Pasay City Regional Trial Court Branch 108 Judge Albert Cansino directed his former acting clerk of court to receive a P6-million bribe on his behalf in exchange for a favorable ruling in a civil case, according to Cansino’s lawyer.

In a letter to The STAR dated Oct. 19, Cansino’s lawyer, Melita Go, maintained that former court interpreter Mariejoy Lagman did not confess receiving instruction from the judge.

The investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed “informant statements pointed exclusively to transactions with Lagman, with zero evidence showing that Judge Cansino authorized the transaction or received any portion of the money,” Go said.

In May 2024, Lagman was arrested in an entrapment operation by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) after allegedly receiving the bribe money. Recovered from her was a court order supposedly signed by Cansino.

The NBI reportedly acted on an anonymous complaint filed before the Supreme Court’s Judicial Integrity Board.

“During parallel administrative hearings, NBI operatives admitted under oath that they had no direct evidence linking the judge to the entrapment operation,” Go said.

Two months after the NBI operation, the DOJ indicted Lagman and dismissed the separate cases filed against Cansino for lack of probable cause.

“The DOJ noted a glaring chronological impossibility in the prosecution’s theory: Judge Cansino signed the subject court order on May 15, 2024 and released it from his chambers on May 16, 2024 – five days before the anonymous email solicitation was sent on May 21 and seven days before the May 23 entrapment operation occurred,” according to Go.

The Office of the Ombudsman overturned the DOJ’s dismissal, Go said, by relying on an “unauthenticated hearsay” and “inferring a conspiracy merely from the judge’s physical presence in his separate chambers when nine court employees were taking their lunch inside the courtroom while the entrapment of his subordinate was ongoing in a separate room.”

The ombudsman filed a case of direct bribery against Cansino before the Sandiganbayan Sixth Division.

A separate complaint for violation of Republic Act 6713, the solicitation of gifts, was lodged against Cansino and Lagman before the Fifth Division.

The anti-graft court has denied the motions filed by Cansino, ruling that the ombudsman’s investigation against him and Lagman were “valid and that the judge’s arguments should be laid down in a full-blown trial.”

Go maintained that Cansino continues to carry out his functions as presiding judge after the 90-day suspension issued against him by the high court lapsed.

Go wrote to The STAR to clarify previous reports on the matter.