Sandiganbayan reprimands Bono Adaza over joke

A joke thrown on impulse and a wrong attribution landed former Rep. Homobono Adaza in trouble at the Sandiganbayan, GMANews.TV learned Sunday. The graft court’s First Division has rebuked Adaza for wrongfully accusing a member of the bench of supposed bias against him, which he claimed extends to his client. Adaza’s client is former Mabajao, Camiguin mayor Isidro T. Reyes, who was convicted in August 2006 of malversation of public property for failure to return a 9 mm pistol and ammunition issued by the local police for his protection. While Adaza will not be penalized for his action, he received a stern warning that a repetition would be met with sanctions. Adaza made the charge against Associate Justice Alexander Gesmundo, junior member of the First Division, in the motion for reconsideration which he filed in behalf of Reyes. He accused the magistrate of “grave abuse of proper and appropriate judicial discretion" for making an off-the-cuff remark during the hearing of his client’s request for permission to travel abroad. At the hearing, Adaza declared in open court that he is willing to take his client’s place in jail if the latter fails to return from his trip to the United States. “Mr. Justice Gesmundo, for reasons known only to him said that anyhow I could join my clients since most of them are in jail anyway," the lawyer said. Gesmundo pointed out that he never made the statement attributed to him as in fact he was not even present in court on that hearing day. Records show that it was Associate Justice Diosdado Peralta who said those words to Adaza. “As for the remark itself made by Justice Peralta, it is obvious that it was given in the same way that Adaza meant his comment – that he would take his client’s place in jail in case the latter fails to return from his travel abroad – to be taken …as a tongue-in-cheek remark," Gesmundo said. The magistrate pointed out that criminal liability is personal to the accused hence Adaza’s offer was legally impossible. Adaza has apologized to the court and changed Peralta’s name for Gesmundo but failed to withdraw his accusation that the latter was biased against him without citing any new basis. - GMANews.TV