Editorial of the Bohol Chronicle
All the stakeholders of democracy will bend backwards to preserve democracy.
When Media criticizes certain acts of the members of the Judiciary, it is only because the country needs the Judiciary to balance off the excesses of either the Executive or the Legislative or the last two in tandem together.
Media criticizes certain acts because it wants the Judiciary - the arbiter of right and wrong - to be pure and appear pure in the eyes of the public. Can we imagine a society that looks down with disdain on its judicial system?
Thus when we say that when five of the seven RTC judges inhibited themselves from acting on the class suit against the 100% realty taxes increase without wide public consultation because they were tax payers is a "cop-out", we meant it. Because if this is so, would cases involving sales taxes and movie theater amusement taxes increases be skirted by judges because they are all consumers and movie-goers respectively? Think about it.
The issue did reach the Supreme Court’s regional court administrator - not for the latter to judge the merits of the case - but to decide what to do with it after the Executive Judge (upon complaint for former Governor Rolly Butalid about the case delay) asked for the High Magistrates' advice what to do with a legal "hot potato".
It was upon the Supreme Court regional court administrator’s advice to the Executive Judge that the case be assigned to a court of which at that time only the sala of Judge Pablo Magdoza was available since Judge Venancio Amila was a Family Court Judge. This development followed after five city based RTC judges already inhibited themselves from handling the case.
Now that it is inside the court of Judge Magdoza, the public expects him to dispense with the case with decent speed and utmost impartiality.
Every sound, expeditious court judgment bolsters the image of the Judiciary in the eyes of the public.
It was an inadvertent oversight of the Chronicle to have stated that no RTC accepted the 100% Real Estate Taxes Hike case since it did eventually fall into Judge Magdoza's turf.
That said, however, we take exception to the statement of Judge Magdoza in his "Letter to the Editor" in this issue viz: " It is very unfortunate that you are using the newspaper founded by your late father to peddle half truths, calculated to erode and destroy the faith and confidence of people in the judiciary."
Save for that overlooked statement above, all statements we made were facts and (if not) opinions meant to egg some members of the judiciary to act in a manner precisely to preserve the image of the Courts as independent juridical body.
As an equal stakeholder in our fragile democracy - the Media is as anxious as the rest that the Judiciary maintains its independence to preserve its luster as a check and balance vehicle - and not work for its erosion as a bastion of public trust.
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