'Oca' blames 'Dongkoy' for transfer of cases

MAYOR Oscar Moreno on Wednesday said the Court of Appeals’ (CA) move to transfer all his cases to the Appellate Court’s Manila Station is unprecedented, even taking a jab at former mayor Vicente “Dongkoy” Emano for allegedly placing ‘pressure’ to the Justices of the Mindanao Station.

Moreno however said that he doesn’t mind of the decision, pointing out that “justice anywhere is still the same justice”.

“Sa ako (for me) no problem, justice anywhere is still the same justice, usa ra ka law book ilang gabasahon ana (they read the same law book). Pero ang ako lang (but for me), dili unta ni mahitabo (we hope this won’t happen) in the future kay luoy kaayo ang mga (because it would be pity for the) litigants na ingnon sila nga ayaw dinhi, didto lang sa Manila (that you drive them away, you tell them go to Manila),” Moreno said.

The Supreme Court en banc has ordered the re-raffle of all the mayor’s administrative disciplinary cases.

This was done after CA-Mindanao Executive Justice Romulo Borja also wrote a letter to CAManila urging the transfer of the mayor cases, raising concerns about its station’s chronic difficulty in composing divisions to act on sensitive cases, due to the number

of refusals by justices in the station and the frequent court-wide reorganizations.

Moreno said he understands that the fast reorganizations has caused delay of the resolutions of cases, but highlighted that the inhibition of some Justices to handle his cases is also one of the major reasons of the transfer.

“Ang nakapabug-at aning (What contributed most to the Justices’) inhibition, kadtong mga rally nilang Dongkoy (was Dongkoy’s rallies) during the Ajinomoto issue, rallies are being held everyday. Actually, that was contempt of court, if they had done that elsewhere, they are already in jail, but the CA-Mindanao Station chose to be patient and humble, no problem with that but, if they had asserted their authority, Dongkoy and Ian could have been imprisoned,” he said.

“The reason why the Mindanao station was established here is so that justice that level, would be available to the people here, but no problem, we respect that,” Moreno added.

All the justices of the CA-Mindanao were unanimous in endorsing the plan to transfer the Moreno cases to Manila.

The cases do not only include the anomalous rental equipment when he was still governor of Misamis Oriental, but also the Ajinomoto case, and the anomalous lease contract of the mayor’s boxing program.