Duty over friendship, new SC associate justice vows

MANILA, Philippines - After being sworn in as the latest justice to join the 15-member Supreme Court, new Associate Justice Diosdado Peralta on Friday maintained that he is an independent-minded judge who will put duty over friendship. Peralta made the assurance amid some critics' statements that he was appointed by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to the post as a reward because he was a member of the three-man Special Division of the Sandiganbayan that found ousted president Joseph Estrada guilty of plunder. "I have been an independent-minded person," Peralta said. "I can say that I'm a friend [of President Arroyo] but insofar as my work, as I said earlier my friendship ends where my work begins," he said, adding that he first met the President in 2002. Peralta also defended his appointment by saying he joined the the prosecution service when he was 33 years old and stayed there for eight years. At 42, he then became a judge at the Quezon City Regional Trial Court, where he stayed for eight years until he was transferred to the Sandiganbayn where he served for six years. "Where will I go, I'm a presiding justice [of the Sandiganbayan], the only way to go is up," he said. Peralta said he is somewhat sad that he is leaving the Sandiganbayan, but said moving up to the Supreme Court is "the dream of every lawyer." "[I'm] happy in a sense that I'm moving up to the highest court, it's the dream of every lawyer to join the Supreme Court. [I'm] sad because I'm leaving a court, a respected court, the Sandiganbayan," he said. Peralta took his oath as the new associate justice, replacing Ruben Reyes who retired January 3, in a ceremony earlier presided by Chief Justice Reynato Puno. The new high court magistrate said he is backing Puno's call for a moral force that will pull the country out of moral decadence. "When I first assumed office in Sandiganbayan the first thing that I told them, you will not have any problems with me as long as you act in accordance with morality, with ethics. Then you act lawfully," he said. Peralta has been referred to as a "hanging judge" before his appointment to the Sandiganbayan because he had sentenced to death more than 40 people as a Quezon City Regional Trial Court judge. Six other SC justices are scheduled to retire this year: Adolf Azcuna on February 16, Dante Tinga on May 11, Consuelo Ynares-Santiago on October 5, Leonardo Quisumbing on November 6, Minita Chico-Nazario on December 5, and Ma. Alicia A. Martinez on December 19. - with Carlo Lorenzo, GMANews.TV