Justice Tijam reacts to Quintos' open letter

This is in connection with the article “P-Noy’s first justice appointee at SC” that appeared in the column Commonsense by Ms. Marichu Villanueva of your newspaper, the Philippine STAR, August 13, 2010 issue.

Please be informed that several portions of the open letter, to which you have alluded to, contained misleading, if not distorted, informations.

Initially, I thought of not making publicly known my reaction to Mr. Quintos’ endless attack against my person and integrity anymore. He has done that several times in the past albeit all due to his mistaken and unfounded notion that I and the rest of the CA 5th Division made unwarranted haste and unfair treatment in our disposition of the case People of the Philippines vs. Jose Villarosa, et al.,” docketed as CA-G.R. CR No. 02091-HC, relating to the death of his 2 sons. I would have wanted to stand by my convictions not to deviate from the unwritten rule that judges and magistrates are not supposed to explain their decisions in public, for Our Decisions should speak for themselves.

Nonetheless, considering that Mr. Quintos seems to have gone far beyond his mere quest for Justice by resorting even to lies, I find it compelling to counter undue and unfair attacks. Let me pointedly address the following several disinformations that Mr. Quintos had lodged against me not just in your newspaper but as well as in other papers of widespread circulation:

1. Mr. Ricardo Quintos’ alleged pending administrative complaint against Justice Tijam Re: CA-G.R. CR HC No. 02091, entitled: “People v Jose Villarosa, et al.”

— In a Resolution, dated Sept. 11, 2007, the Supreme Court (SC) DISMISSED A.M. No. 07-5-07-CA filed by Mr. Quintos (A copy of this Resolution is attached herein as Annex 1).

2. Mr. Quintos believed that there was unwarranted haste and unfair treatment in the disposition of the said criminal case;

— The SC carefully declared in said Resolution, in fact, that it could not discern any taint of “unwarranted haste and unfair treatment on the part of Justice Tijam.”

3. There were reasons for inhibition of Justice Tijam (and the rest of the Division) from handling the case but he refused to yield.

— In a Resolution, dated December 10, 2007, the SC DISMISSED Mr. Quintos’ Petition re the denial of his motion for inhibition “for failure to sufficiently show that any grave abuse of discretion was committed by the Court of Appeals in rendering the challenged resolutions which, on the contrary, appear to be in accord with the facts and the applicable law and jurisprudence”. (A copy of this Resolution is herein attach as Annex 2.

— In a Resolution, dated February 18, 2008, the SC DENIED with FINALITY Mr. Quintos’ motion for reconsideration. (A copy of this Resolution is herein attached as Annex 3).

4. Mr. Quintos boldly declared that not only did I flatly deny his motion for inhibition, I even cited him Contempt of Court.

— This is a total lie. Although Mr. Quintos’ derogatory and malicious remarks both in his motion for inhibition as well as during the hearing therein constituted direct contempt of court, I discerningly opted to merely warn him to be more prudent and circumspect in his language. In fact, there is nothing in the records which will show that he was ever cited in contempt of court.

Had Mr. Quintos been only candid about the proceedings and facts of the case, I would have seen no point in objecting to his views regarding this case.

Yet, Mr. Quintos has been consistently opposing my application to the Supreme Court based on the same baseless allegations but which were already thrice rejected by the JBC as evidenced by my inclusion in its Shortlist for at least 3 times. Also attached herein as Annex 4 is my letter to the JBC which I sent on September 11, 2009, as a reply to Mr. Quintos’ objection to my application to the SC.