At a press briefing here on Tuesday, SC Public Information Office chief and spokesman Theodore Te confirmed that the panel – chaired by Associate Justice Marvic Leonen – is currently in the process of “writing an initial report.”
“And it already includes recommendations,” Te said shortly after the high tribunal’s summer session, the last for this year.
Te also revealed that the committee will be submitting the report to the high court en banc in June when session resumes after the magistrates take a month-long “decision writing recess.”
The investigating panel had earlier invited one of the alleged “fixers” previously known only as a certain “Ma’am Arlene,” later identified as Arlene Angeles Lerma, to help shed light on the controversy.
“Ma’am Arlene,” described in earlier news reports as the judiciary’s version of alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles, first came into national consciousness through Jarius Bondoc’s column in the Philippine Star last year.
According to Bondoc’s column, “Ma’am Arlene” throws birthday parties for appellate court justices and trial court judges and finances their family trips abroad, among other things, in exchange for their favors in cases.
But last year, the Bureau of Immigration confirmed that Lerma had already left the country for Singapore. She reportedly did not purchase a return ticket.
Leonen is joined in the investigating committee by retired SC Associate Justices Alicia Austria-Martinez and Romeo Callejo Sr.
Confidential
The body has already held numerous sessions and received sworn testimonies from more than 30 resource persons, among them members of the judiciary and Supreme Court officials and employees, and other government officials.
The committee had earlier said it has so far gathered both from official and unofficial sources many documents, photographs, and reports as well as information and tips on the matter.
The committee proceedings are confidential “to allow greater freedom on the part of resource persons to speak and to give the committee members the flexibility to probe more deeply.”
Previous reports said there are at least three notorious fixers working in the judiciary, one of them is a clerk of court at the Court of Appeals while another previously worked in Malacañang. The third, meanwhile, is an ‘influential figure’ at the Manila City Hall. — RSJ, GMA News
