The Supreme Court has ordered Lorraine Marie Badoy, former National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) spokesperson, to answer the indirect contempt petition filed against her by several groups within 15 days.
Law school deans and lawyers belonging to the Movement Against Disinformation sued Badoy following her remarks against a Manila City trial court judge, who dismissed the government’s case seeking to declare the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army, as terror organizations.
“Acting on the Urgent Petition for Indirect Contempt, the Court resolved, without giving due course to the petition, to require the respondent to comment thereon within a non-extendible period of 15 days from notice hereof,” the Court En Banc resolution said.
The petitioners said Badoy’s verbal attack against Manila RTC Branch 19 Judge Marlo Magdoza-Malagar aimed to “assault and humiliate” the latter after she rendered the decision.
Former Philippine Bar Association (PBA) president Rico Domingo, Ateneo Human Rights Center executive director Ray Paolo Santiago, former Ateneo law dean Antonio “Tony” La Viña, Soledad Deriquito-Mawis of the College of Law of Lyceum University, Anna Maria Abad of Adamson University College of Law, Rodel Taton of the Graduate School of Law of San Sebastian College-Recoletos, and several lawyers filed the petition.
They stressed that the “vicious assault” against Magdoza-Malagar has alarmed and shaken the judges and lawyers so much so that several law groups described the online vilification and red-tagging as constituting “endangerment” of a member of the judiciary and an “attack on the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary.”
Among those groups, besides the PBA, are the Philippine Judges Association, Integrated Bar of the Philippines, and Hukom Inc.
The petitioners said Badoy’s propensity to belittle and ridicule the judiciary is “downright contemptuous” and showed there is nothing that would stop her mockery and condemnation of the justice system until she is held liable by the SC.
Given the gravity and hostility displayed by Badoy, the petitioners asked the High Court to mete her the maximum imprisonment of six months imprisonment for indirect contempt and be fined the maximum amount of P30,000.
In a Facebook post, Badoy accused Magdoza-Malagar of “lawyering” for the CPP-NPA when she ruled that rebellion and political crimes are not acts of terrorism.
The ex-spokesman also expressed a hypothetical scenario of killing the judge out of her political belief.
Badoy also accused the judge’s husband, the chancellor of University of the Philippines Cebu, of being a CPP-NPA member.
The ex-NTF-ELCAC official said she will create an organization that will bomb offices of “corrupt judges who are friends of terrorists.”
The high court previously issued a show cause order directing Badoy to explain why she should not be cited in contempt of court for her statements against Magdoza-Malagar, after the IBP, PJA, and IBP also filed an indirect contempt plea against Badoy.
The Supreme Court also issued a stern warning against those who malign and maliciously attack judges and their families.