Baguio-Benguet lawyers press for judge’s dismissal

BAGUIO CITY — Members of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) in Baguio and Benguet have asked the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision suspending a Regional Trial Court (RTC) judge for one year instead of dismissing him from the service.

In a motion for reconsideration, the officers and members of the local IBP chapter, led by their president Cesar Oracion, said the tribunal’s suspension of RTC Branch 3 Judge Fernando Vil Pamintuan was disproportionate to the serious offenses he had committed.

The Supreme Court, in an en banc ruling last Jan. 30, found Pamintuan guilty of gross ignorance of the law, violation of the constitutional rights of the accused, arrogance, oppression, impropriety and violation of the Code of Judicial Conduct.

The IBP chapter, however, said "jurisprudence shows that other judges who committed lesser offenses than (Pamintuan) were meted out the extreme penalty of dismissal."

It said the Supreme Court must sustain the penalty earlier recommended by its investigating justice against the RTC judge "in accord with the gravity of the offenses."

Pamintuan himself has appealed the penalty, describing it as too harsh considering his more than five years in the judiciary, and more than 16 years in the government, including his over nine years as a legal researcher of three Court of Appeals justices.