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FACT CHECK: NO Supreme Court order to jail Larry Gadon

The Supreme Court has ordered the imprisonment of disbarred lawyer Larry Gadon.

YouTube channel PINAS NEWS INSIDER 2024-06-04 Misleading

While the SC recently found Gadon guilty of gross misconduct, he was not sentenced to imprisonment.

Disbarred lawyer and anti-poverty czar Larry Gadon has supposedly been ordered jailed by the Supreme Court (SC), a YouTube video claims. This is misleading. While the SC recently found Gadon guilty of gross misconduct, he was not slapped with a prison sentence.

Uploaded on June 4, nearly two weeks after the high court issued its verdict, the video bore the following text on its thumbnail:

KULONG SI GADON HINATULAN NG KORTE (Gadon in jail, sentenced by the court)!”

Its headline read: “KAKAPASOK LANG Paktay na! Wala ng Takas si Larry Gadon Hinatulan ng Korte! VpSara Sen Bato Zubiri (Just in, he’s finished! Larry Gadon has no escape, sentenced by the court! VP Sara, Sen. Bato, Zubiri).

VERA FILES FACT CHECK - THE FACTS: The Supreme Court has not ordered the imprisonment of disbarred lawyer Larry Gadon. The high court recently found him guilty of gross misconduct and ordered him to pay a fine of P150,000. Gadon was also adjudged ineligible for judicial clemency.

On May 23, the SC ordered Gadon to pay a fine of P150,000 after it found him guilty of gross misconduct by committing perjury and making hearsay accusations in his impeachment complaint against former chief justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.

Also accused of filing baseless criminal cases against several SC officials, the high court also ruled Gadon to be ineligible for judicial clemency. This means he is not allowed to appeal his disbarment and retrieve his lawyer title.

The SC said Gadon’s gross misconduct offense is punishable by disbarment but noted this could no longer be imposed since Gadon is already banned from practicing as a law professional.

In 2023, the high court unanimously disbarred Gadon for cursing and uttering misogynistic remarks against a female journalist. The SC then noted that his actions were “indisputably scandalous that it discredits the legal profession.

Gadon, a presidential adviser for poverty affairs, recently made headlines after claiming that poverty in the Philippines is only “imaginary.” (Read FACT CHECK: Anti-poverty czar Gadon downplays poverty in PH).

The video did not show proof to support its claim. It only featured an anonymous narrator who read a news report on the SC’s guilty verdict against Gadon as well as a previously fact-checked vlogger who criticized him for saying Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio would not win as president in the 2028 elections.

Uploaded by YouTube channel PINAS NEWS INSIDER, the video has received 95,529 interactions. Facebook users also reposted the link.


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(Editor's Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)