an Excerpt of Judging the Judges by Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban

18 August 2009

http://www.cjpanganiban.ph/htdocs/books/renaissance/Ch_9_Judging.htm

(I have resolved to find the most stuff I can about my Great-Grand Father, Juan Frivaldo)

I remember that when I was still new in the Court in early 1996,  Juan Frivaldo made repeated requests to see me -- directly through calls to my secretary and, indirectly, through mutual friends -- purportedly to discuss some urgent, personal matter. 

 

You see, he was overwhelmingly voted governor of Sorsogon by a margin of 27,000 votes during the 1988 elections and by 57,000 votes in 1992.  However, he was not able to serve his popular mandate, because the Supreme Court twice disqualified him for being a non-Filipino.[5]  Undaunted by his two legal defeats, he ran and won again in 1995 by a margin of 20,000 votes.  This time, he claimed to have reacquired Philippine citizenship through repatriation.[6]

 

          I steadfastly refused to see him.  In desperation, he turned to his close friend Max Soliven,[7] the journalist, and told him that he would just flee to the jungles of Sorsogon (“Mamumundok na lang ako”), because he would surely be disqualified again as shown by my refusal to communicate with him, even just by telephone.

 

            A few months after, a Court Decison that I had penned came out, recognizing his citizenship and authorizing him to sit as governor of his native province.

 

          After a year, I finally met Governor Frivaldo for the first time.  To his profuse expression of gratitude, I told him that he owed me nothing because I had merely discharged my duty.  I also explained that propriety had prevented me from seeing or even speaking with him over the phone.  I added that a judge must not only be impartial, but must also be perceived to be so by the parties.  Because Frivaldo did not succeed in seeing me, much less in influencing me, his victory must have been all the more sweet, because he knew it was not the result of lakad.  It was indeed the necessary consequence of an impartial assessment of the law as it related to the facts of his case.  Before he left my office, he again expressed gratitude -- this time for his education on the need for respecting the integrity and impartiality of judges.