Makati judge drops Angry Bird case like a ... you know what
A Makati judge who issued a suppression order against the estranged wife of Comelec chairman Andres Bautista, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre, and the National Bureau of Investigation has reversed course and inhibited himself.
According to case records, Judge Winlove Dumayas of Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 59 “voluntarily inhibited” himself last week, a day after lawyer Lorna Kapunan, counsel of Bautista’s estranged wife Patricia Cruz, questioned his impartiality.
Dumayas had earlier granted the writ of habeas data sought by Bautista, wherein the wife, Kapunan, the DOJ, and the NBI were “temporarily enjoined and suppressed” from publicly disclosing the incriminating documents.
Kapunan then asked for Dumayas’ inhibition, citing that the same judge had been censured by the Supreme Court en banc on a sequestered Cocobank/coco levy case, when Bautista was still the PCGG chairman.
In addition, Dumayas had also acted favorably on a second case involving Bautista and his father-in-law, billionaire developer Daniel Vazquez, where “commission sheets” found in the Bautista documents “correspond to the period when the case of Danny Vazquez was pending before the honorable court,” Kapunan said.
“With all due respect, the Honorable Presiding Judge’s role in the resolution of those two controversial petitions bar him now from ruling on a matter that may require him to decide whether or not to suppress or order the destruction of documents that may relate to or reveal anomalies in the handling of those petitions,” Kapunan said.
The Comelec chairman had earlier filed the same case in Manila, but had it withdrawn to re-file the same petition in Makati, this time adding his sister, Maria BautistaAfan, as co-petitioner.
The new Bautista petition by some lucky coincidence landed in Dumayas’ sala.
“It can not be said that when a judge favors one of the parties, it means that he is already biased,” Dumayas said, in reply to Kapunan’s motion. ”It only proves that the argument presented by one of the parties is more tenable than that of the other.”
Along with his inhibition, Dumayas also rescinded his order to have the Bautista documents produced before the court, effectively quashing the writ of habeas data he had issued.
The case will now have to be re-raffled to a new judge, despite the objection of Bautista counsel Aeneas Eli Diaz.
Afan, in the meantime, has been ordered by reportedly no less than ABS-CBN chairman Eugenio Lopez III to take an indefinite leave from the ABS-CBN Foundation, where she is the managing director, especially since she has become directly involved in the litigation.
Heard through the grapevine
Billionaire-polo patron Iñigo Zobel has given his blessings for his daughter Bianca to end her five-year marriage with Madrigal heir Christopher Warns.
The split is being settled amicably, with Warns himself relocating to Los Angeles to finish a business degree at the University of Southern California.