If they are as passionate about reforms and the full and proper implementation of P-Noy’s daang matuwid campaign promise as they claim to be, those who had earlier excoriated ousted Chief Justice (CJ)  Renato Corona for alleged infractions during his term should be as concerned about an earlier impropriety allegedly perpetrated by the Davide Supreme Court (SC) with then Associate Justice now Acting CJ Antonio Carpio as the main proponent.
We refer to the revelations made by Pulupandan Mayor Magsie Peña and former SC stenographer Fe Malou Castelo regarding the various incidents related to a case filed by the former against Urban Bank in 1994 for payment of fees related to services he rendered to the bank.
That case was won by Peña all the way up to the Court of Appeals but was stalled at the SC’s First Division chaired by no less than then Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. with Carpio as the designated ponente. Pena’s efforts to collect from Urban Bank and his subsequent pursuits to obtain justice from the Davide court brought him face to face with the suffocating realities of the workings within the offices of the highest dispensers of justice in the land.
Peña accused Carpio of giving undue favors to the defunct Urban Bank to the extent of falsifying the high court’s records to stop Peña and the deputy sheriff of the RTC in Bago City to perfect the sale of the bank’s auctioned assets to him as part of his service fee. The then case ponente, Carpio, allegedly issued a resolution granting the bank’s motion for clarification when in truth and in fact the court only noted the same and did not actually act on it.
In fact, his uncanny ability to support his allegations of infractions so infuriated the high tribunal that the magistrates in a per curiam decision finally decided to disbar him last April 2012. He has since filed an urgent motion for reconsideration of that decision and has vowed to fight for his rights and those of many others who may have been wronged by decisions of government at the highest levels.
In his motion, Pena said that while “he cannot seriously hope to be reinstated as a member of the Philippine Bar as long as the members of this honorable court, as an ‘old boys club,’ continue to adhere to misplaced professional courtesy by protecting one of their own rather than the truth,” he will continue nonetheless to pursue his case and tell the truth in accord with the lawyer’s oath to “do no falsehood, nor consent to the doing of any in court.”
“ I find refuge,” Peña said in his motion, “ in the lasting words of the great former US Sen. Robert F. Kennedy who, on one occasion, said that “Every time we turn our heads the other way when we see the law flouted, when we tolerate what we know to be wrong, when we close our eyes and ears to the corrupt because we are too busy or too frightened, when we fail to speak up and speak out, ‘We strike a blow against freedom and decency and justice.’”
Peña’s story corroborated by Castelo’s revelations as an expert witness on the SC’s workings are instructive to those who may now, as Kennedy advised, be “turning their heads the other way or tolerate the wrongs,” in the mistaken belief that with Corona gone, the judiciary’s ills have also been banished forever. Not so. As the facts will reveal, stories like Peña’s will continue to hound us no end.
Read his story as we urge one and all and cry out for truth and justice:
“1. In 1994, Urban Bank engaged the services of Peña for purposes of evicting illegal settlers from a parcel of land located along Roxas Boulevard, Pasay City belonging to Isabela Sugar Co., which property Urban Bank then intended to purchase. Urban bank agreed to compensate Peña for his services in the amount of twenty four million pesos (P24,000,000.00);
“2. Peña successfully completed the above mentioned eviction but Urban Bank subsequently denied the existence of any attorney-client relationship with Peña and refused to pay his professional fees, as previously agreed upon;
“3. Peña filed in 1996 a collection case against Urban Bank with the RTC of Bago City which awarded  Peña in a 1999 decision the amount of twenty eight million five hundred thousand pesos (P28,500,000) representing professional fees;
“4. Urban Bank appealed the RTC decision to the Court of Appeals. In the meantime, upon motion of Pena, RTC Bago issued an Order (execution order) allowing Peña to execute its Order pending appeal;
“5.  On 26 April 2000, Urban Bank declared a bank holiday, and subsequently was closed by the BSP. Then, the Court of Appeals affirmed the RTC order allowing Peña to continue with the implementation of the execution order. Pena was able to cause the levy and sale by public auction of several of the properties of Urban Bank during which he emerged as the winning bidder of several of the said properties;
“6.  Urban Bank failed to exercise its right to redeem the properties from Peña within one year; in an attempt to prevent Peña from consolidating ownership over the properties filed actions before the high tribunal which were consolidated and forwarded to the First Division chaired by no less than then Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. However, the SC did not issue any restraining order and Peña continued consolidating the properties;
“7.  Between Nov. 1 to 10, 2002, one of the bank’s counsels,
Atty. Manule ‘Noli’ Singson, persistently negotiated with Peña for a possible settlement. At one point, Peña was offered a settlement amount of P25 million. Peña did not accept the said offer and instead made a counter offer. Urban Bank rejected the offer but Singson advised Peña that the money was still available for ‘extra ordinary settlement’;
“8.  On Nov.19, 2002, two weeks after the redemption
period had elapsed, Peña was advised by Singson that they were allegedly able to secure a Resolution from the high court dated Nov. 13, 2002 through then Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, suspending the redemption period and consolidation of ownership over the above mentioned properties;
“9. Surprised at this development, Peña investigated what happened and found out that without his knowledge, Singson had allegedly filed a Motion for Clarification dated Aug. 6, 2002 which became the basis for the Nov. 13, 2002 Resolution. Peña was not furnished a copy of the Aug. 6 motion which was already anomalous to begin with and, worse, found out that the same was furnished to the ACCRA Law, one of Urban Bank’s counsel of record;
“10.  Worse, Peña was informed that the respective copies of the Resolution dated Nov. 13, 2002 for the parties were released for mailing only on Nov. 20, 2002, a day after Atty. Singson brandished a copy of the same to him. Thus, Atty. Singson was able to get a copy of the Resolution at least one day ahead of its release for mailing. Something really, really anomalous happened;
“11. Finally, in January 2003, Peña’s worst fears came about.
He received by ordinary mail an envelop containing what appeared and what later on was confirmed to be copies of the supplemental agenda of the deliberations on Nov. 13, 2002 of the SC’s First Division which contained a list of cases and pending incidents that included the Urban Bank Consolidated Cases. Peña found out that when the Division took up Singson’s Motion for Clarification appearing as item 175(f) of the supplemental agenda, the same was merely noted and did not grant the same as the notation “N” appeared directly across the item. Yet, Singson got a Resolution penned by Carpio granting the same. The “N” was mysteriously changed to “G.”
The Davide court upheld this anomaly and proceeded to do all kinds of contortions to justify the same further inflaming Peña’s search for the truth which, sadly, led to his disbarment which is now the subject of his motion for reconsideration.