The Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) may have looked the other way but former ACCRA lawyer Ernesto Francisco Jr. vowed that he will continue to ring the alarm bells on the nomination of Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Diosdado Peralta to the Supreme Court. 

Peralta purportedly has Malacañang’s ear among the five SC hopefuls vetted by the JBC as replacement for retired Justice Ruben Reyes, who hang his robe on January 3, 2009.

The others who were nominated to the SC are appellate court justice Martin Villarama, who got seven votes from the JBC, his colleague Portia Hormachuelos, anti-graft court justice Francisco Villaruz and Ateneo law dean Cesar Villanueva, all of whom got five votes each along with Peralta.

Cojuangco and ACCRA

In a letter dated Dec.15, 2008, Francisco urged the JBC to recall Peralta’s nomination following the magistrate’s alleged failure to inhibit himself from cases involving Marcos crony and  Nationalist People’s Coalition chair emeritus Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr.

Peralta, who chairs the first division, penned the decisions on two civil cases regarding the coco levy funds in November 2007 – one which awarded 20 percent of the San Miguel Corp. shares to Cojuangco, and another one which upheld 72.2 percent of the shares in the United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) as public funds.
Francisco said that Peralta should have kept his hands off Cojuangco’s coco levy cases knowing that the business tycoon has a “close relationship” with ACCRA or Angara Abello Concepcion Regala & Cruz law offices, a leading law firm which Peralta purportedly nursed friendly relations with as a prosecutor in the 1990s.
 
'Fixer'

Francisco relayed in his prior objection to Peralta’s nomination for Ombudsman in 2005 that the magistrate, then a prosecutor, purportedly acted as ACCRA’s “go-between” with the Manila Metropolitan Trial Court (MTC).

He stated in his affidavit that when he was still working as a lawyer in ACCRA, he was instructed by one of the firm’s supervising partners to meet Peralta and follow up on one of the firm’s cases currently lodged at the MTC. 

He added that the meetings became more frequent, as he would also follow-up with Peralta “certain incidents” and a favorable decision for a case, which they eventually got.

“We eventually got a decision favorable to our client and, if I recall correctly, I received an advance copy of the decision from Pros. Peralta,” he wrote.

While he admitted that he does not know if money also changed hands in the said case, he held the view that “Pros. Peralta was somebody who fixes cases for litigants and lawyers.”

Rehash
  
The JBC was silent on his initial opposition. Francisco said that he also chose not to pursue the protest following Peralta’s withdrawal of application for the Ombudsman.

But he decided to bring up his objection again after knowing that Peralta participated in resolving cases involving Cojuangco, whom Francisco claimed has ties with ACCRA.

He explained that in Republic of the Philippines v. Eduardo Cojuangco, et al, the Presidential Commission on Good Government said that ACCRA lawyers have “acted as nominees-stockholders” of companies up for sequestration.

We spoke to ACCRA’s assistant managing partner Atty. Teresita Herbosa over the phone to get the law firm’s side regarding Francisco’s allegations but she declined to comment.

 Meanwhile, Peralta has countered Francisco’s accusations in a comment he filed on December 19, 2008.

He dismissed the lawyer’s opposition as a rehash of his earlier objection in 2005 and maintained that he “has never interceded in any case before any court, tribunal or administrative body.”

Re-file opposition
 
The JBC included Francisco’s opposition in their agenda on Dec. 22, 2008, the same day the body voted on their nominees to the president. 

However, his objection has apparently not been given much weight, as Peralta made it to the shortlist with votes from Justice Sec. Raul Gonzalez, Senate representative Francis “Chiz” Escudero, former Supreme Court Justice Regino Hermosisima Jr., law dean Amado Dimayuga, and Integrated Bar of the Philippines representative J Conrado Castro.

But in case Peralta does not get picked to take over Reyes’s seat, Francisco said that he would re-file his opposition to block the magistrate’s nomination for the position of Justice Adolfo Azcuna, who retires on Feb.16. 

“Personally, I do not have anything against Justice Peralta. As what I have written in my letter to the JBC, I saw him as an amiable person. However, this concerns the state of the judiciary,” he told Abs-cbnnews.com/Newsbreak.