The multitudes of us may not be lawyers, but we can easily tell what a conflict of interest is. In this case, not only was there the inclination for undue influence because of existing allegiances. The judge actually acted with malice – he deliberately concealed the fact that a lawyer for a prosecution witness was his own brother.
In fact, Judge Romeo Buenaventura only inhibited himself with haste when a co-accused of Sen. Leila de Lima asked the judge to cease from handling the case after learning that the judge’s brother Emmanuel Buenaventura was the lawyer of Ronnie Dayan. Could he have inhibited himself if there was no motion for his inhibition? In short, nabuking siya (his secret was revealed). This was on June 15, 2023.
Judge Buenaventura of the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court Branch 256 was handling De Lima’s third case. De Lima had won her two other cases in two separate courts. Buenaventura’s sala was the last to rule. The week previous to his inhibition, Buenaventura had denied De Lima’s motion for bail, ruling that the evidence for her guilt was strong that she committed illegal drug trading.
Judge Buenaventura could have read his decision to deny De Lima bail by listening to himself speak before a mirror. That could have saved him from unsavory self-dealing when he signed his inhibition:
“The undersigned presiding judge will exercise his discretion and will recuse himself from further hearing this case not because the allegations are true, but because it is his avowed duty as a member of the Bench to promote confidence in the judicial system.” He stuck to an excuse that he did not know his brother had lawyered for co-accused Dayan who executed a testimony in the House of Representatives that De Lima had received kickbacks from drug lords.
That was where the secret allegiance had began, at the House of Representatives in November 2016. At Duterte’s bidding, the House Justice Committee was conducting a hearing on the illegal drug trade at New Bilibid prisons. It was a fitting scenario to introduce the context for De Lima’s crucifixion. The committee chair who gladly opened himself to political prostitution at Duterte’s behest was Reynaldo Umali of the 2nd district of Oriental Mindoro.
Umali’s star witness was Dayan who needed a lawyer to execute an affidavit attesting to De Lima’s role in the Bilibid drug trade. Umali said he turned for help to the Integrated Bar of the Philippines. The IBP, he said, provided him two lawyers – Emmanuel Buenaventura and Abet Reyes.
Umali lied. The two lawyers were not handed out to him voluntarily. Nor did he pluck them out of nowhere.
Fact: the Buenaventuras were political partners of Umali in his congressional district. Natives of Pinamalayan town, four Buenaventuras were in elective positions in the district under the Umali umbrella. These were the lawyer Emmanuel (provincial board member), Martin (provincial board member), Gary (municipal councilor) and – hold your horses – Romeo (provincial board member) before Duterte appointed him as judge on June 8, 2020. In fact, this was a family dynasty of politicians allied with the Reynaldo Umalis.
Judge Buenaventura was indeed hiding his identity – his ties with Umali who led the persecution of Leila de Lima in the House. With the help of the Buenaventuras, Umali had sealed De Lima’s fate – she was arrested in 2017 and put to jail on the basis alone of invented tales concocted by Duterte.
But the truth fights back. On January 7, 2021, the political operator Reynaldo Umali died of cardiac arrest secondary to the Wuhan Virus and stage 3 liver cancer. There was no more reason to keep the cat in the bag. Dayan then testified in court that it was Umali who coerced him to invent stories about Leila de Lima. May God have mercy on Umali’s soul.
And then the truth retaliated three more times: De Lima was acquitted in all three cases that Duterte had manipulated the courts to put her to shame. On January 5, 2022, the Ombudsman dismissed bribery charges against De Lima, citing no probable cause to indict her. The ruling was made public only in August 2022 when Duterte was no longer in power. On November 13, 2023, the Muntinlupa RTC Branch 206 granted her petition for bail and acquitted her seven months later.
Rule 137 of the Rules of Court says: “Section 1. Disqualification of judges. — No judge or judicial officer shall sit in any case in which he is related to counsel within the fourth degree.
Romeo and Emmanuel Buenaventura are related by second degree of consanguinity as brothers.
Yet how did the Supreme Court rule? It found Buenaventura guilty of misconduct, but for delaying the resolution of De Lima’s third case. It found no reason to sanction him for his brother’s ties with Umali. Buenaventura reasoned that it took him almost three years to resolve De Lima’s bail petition because of the Wuhan Virus pandemic. But the high tribunal said the judge was liable for letting the bail petition languish in his court for nearly three years.
Buenaventura’s punishment: a fine of P36,000. That is peanuts for a judge who comes from a political dynasty counting more than two members in politics. And that is a pittance for a judge who had the predilection to convict an innocent Leila de Lima, all because of a president who used politics for her persecution using the judiciary. Wasn’t the judge as guilty as Umali and Duterte?
And for that, Judge Buenaventura got a mere reprimand.
As we had witnessed Rodrigo Duterte’s blitzkrieg unravel against Leila de Lima, he weaponized the judiciary against his critics. Who is the judge who will not rule to sate the burning fancy of a madman dictator like Duterte and then to collect his reward for a higher judicial bench? Who is the congressman who will not sell his soul to Duterte for a few million pieces of pork barrel funds?
We the citizens have no guarantee that this travesty, this sheer abuse of the judiciary, will not be repeated again.
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.