By Lei Chavez
abs-cbnNEWS.com
Discrepancies in case records of the Court of Appeals surfaced today in the ongoing probe on the alleged bribery attempt on Justice Jose Sabio Jr. over the Meralco-GSIS case.
Teresita Custodia, executive clerk of court, faced the panel composed of retired Supreme Court Justices Flerida Romero, Carolina Grino Aquino, and Romeo Callejo with the "logbook" she promised in yesterday's session.
However, an initial probe into the memoranda given by the parties on the Meralco-GSIS case showed that there are discrepancies in the dates of the filing of each memorandum.
According to the "memoranda logbook" of the clerk of court, a personally-delivered memoranda was filed on July 7, 2008. But when the panel compared the information in the "logbook" with the receiving date in the memoranda, the dates were different. The memorandum was received on July 10, 2008 by the receiving committee.
When the data were compared, it was found out that the latter memorandum was from Meralco. The memorandum that was received on July 7 was not stitched in the rollo. (The rollo is the complete case file.)
Because of the lack of information in the logbook, Custodio has no means of confirming whether the July 7 memorandum that was received was indeed from the GSIS or from SEC. The nature of the memorandum and the party were not properly written in the logbook.
Missing memorandum
The missing memorandum was not stitched in the rollo, as it should be. Custodio claimed that her office reproduced seven copies of it and gave two copies to the ponente, Justice Vicente Roxas, who at that time was holding on to the rollo.
According to Custodio, her office also sent a copy of the memorandum to the offices of Justice Apolinario Bruselas and Justice Bienvenido Reyes, members of the regular 8th division, upon their requests.
The receipt of the memoranda was not recorded in the "logbook" because according to the clerk of the court, the Internal Rules of the Court of Appeals (IRCA) says that they need to send a copy to the ponente.
She was however "not sure" whether she gave a copy of the memorandum to Presiding Justice Conrado Vasquez. She was also "not sure" whether she gave copies of the memorandum to the members of the special 9th division.
At that time, Custodio was "under the opinion" that Reyes should preside over the Meralco-GSIS case.
The panel questioned why would the clerk reproduce seven copies of the memoranda and yet not automatically send copies to the other members of the division. Custodio answered "I don't know" because it had always been the practice even before she assumed office.
When the panel asked why the missing memorandum is not in the rollo, Custodio said that the rollo was returned to her only when the decision on the case was filed for promulgation. "It was with Justice Roxas," she said.
The rollo
Callejo referred to the IRCA and said that it is the duty of the filing committee to stitch memoranda, motions, court decisions, and anything related to the case in the rollo. The rollo "should be forwarded" after two days of receipt of the papers to the clerk of court who will then prepare an agendum for the petitions received.
This rule in the IRCA was not followed by the clerk of court. Custodio said that her office has been stitching the petitions to the rollo and she prepares an agendum after which she forwards a copy of the petition with the agendum to the ponente.
Custodio said that the last time she saw the rollo was on May 30, when she prepared copies of the petition to lift the temporary restraining order from GSIS to be given to the 9th division.
She was only able to see the rollo when three personnel from the office of Roxas delivered it with the decision on the Meralco-GSIS case. Delivered with the rollo were the petitions she forwarded to Roxas in "loose pages", the decision on the case, and a deliberation report.
Missing deliberation transcriptions
Callejo also noticed that only one deliberation report was stitched to the rollo. He asked Custodio where the original copy of the transcript is and where the other reports on the previous deliberations by the 8th division are.
Custodio replied that they don't have copies of the transcript since their office was not included during the deliberation. She also didn’t know the dates of the deliberation.
Before she became the executive clerk of court, Custodio used to be a division clerk for four other justices, including Reyes. She said that since she started in 1992, they have not been asked to attend any deliberation.
Stenographers are also not included in the deliberation. The only time, according to Custodio, that they did the transcriptions for a deliberation was when she was under Justice Salvador Valdes.
Callejo pointed out that in the rules of court, there should always be stenographers and clerks who would record the nature of the meetings. "Who then records the time of the meetings?" he asked since it was included in the IRCA that the number of meetings should be stitched in the rollo.
Custodio answered she doesn't know. It was probably the division clerks who do so.
Sabio also pointed out to the panel that there is no signature in his copy of the deliberation. Callejo said the copy of the panel, which was reproduced from the rollo, has initials "at the lower right portion of each page."
Vidal and Vasquez confirmed that their copies of the deliberation were not signed. They got their copies of the deliberation from Roxas's affidavit.