The news report titled “Aguirre washes hands of slays raps downgrade” (News, 6/22/19) called to mind the incompetence of Regional Trial Court judges who issued the search warrants on persons already in jail (“SC sanction sought on judge who issued search warrant on Mayor Espinosa” (News, 12/2/16). Even a first-year law student would have the common sense to discern the sheer stupidity of such an act.
There were actually three RTC judges involved in the murder of Albuera, Leyte mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. and another inmate while the two were in detention: Leyte judge Carlos Arguelles (who “sat” on the urgent application to transfer Espinosa to another jail because of threats to his life), and Samar judges Tarcelo Sabarre Jr. and Janet Cabalona (who issued the search warrants). The Office of the Court Administrator, under Jose Midas Marquez, which conducted the investigation turned out to be more friendly and recommended only slight penalties—a mere “slap on the wrist.” The Supreme Court en banc disagreed: “SC ordered deeper probe on judges who handled Espinosa drug case” (News, 1/25/17).
With those judicial warrants, policemen were able to barge into the jail where Espinosa was detained and gunned him and another inmate down, supposedly “in self-defense.” During a Senate hearing on that incident, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre even agreed it was “not only premeditated, but an overkill.” Verily, without those warrants, it is unthinkable that such brazen acts of murder could have happened right inside the jail.
People died on account of that judicial brainlessness. Those judges should have been dismissed already and stopped from inflicting their unfathomable mediocrity on the entire judiciary. What is taking the Supreme Court so long to kick them out?
ROGELIO S. CANDELARIO, rodscan888@gmail.com