By Rey E. Requejo

THE Supreme Court has fired the Olongapo City judge who inhibited himself from handling the controversial rape case against US Marine Lance Corporal Daniel Smith for his negligent and inefficient handling of marriage annulment cases.

The high court also fined a Tacloban City judge for failing to resolve one case within 90 days as required by law.

The high court as a whole dismissed Olongapo City Regional Trial Court Judge Renato Dilag of Branch 73, and it made the decision after one of his stenographers, Nilda Verginesa-Suarez, accused him and another stenographer, Concepcion Pascua, of collecting P30,000 from litigants in exchange for favorable decisions on marriage annulment cases.

An investigation by Court of Appeals Justice Ramon Garcia found no evidence showing that the judge received money in exchange for favorable decisions, but probers discovered that Dilag had signed conflicting decisions in three cases, mishandled two cases, and failed to properly supervise his staff.

In a separate case, the high tribunal fined Dilag P30,000 for gross ignorance of the law in 2005, the year before he inhibited himself from hearing the rape case involving the American soldier who was later convicted of rape.

The Court said the previous administrative decision aggravated Dilag’s case, prompting the tribunal to impose the maximum penalty aside from forfeiting his retirement benefits and disqualifying him from public office, including government corporations.

The tribunal also fired his stenographer Pascua for graft and corruption, barred her from being employed in government service, and forfeited her retirement benefits without prejudice to any further action that may be taken by the Ombudsman.

In another case involving a regional trial court judge, the tribunal also fined Tacloban City Judge Crisostomo Garrido P10,000 for gross inefficiency after he failed to resolve a case within 90 days as prescribed by the Constitution.

The case stemmed from the complaint of the widow of a murder victim who claimed Garrido violated the constitutional mandate that courts must decide a case with 90 days.

Garrido claimed that he issued a decision within 90 days after he announced the case submitted for resolution, but the court ruled that the required period should have started upon the submission of the last pleading and not when the judge declared it submitted for resolution.

“Whenever a judge cannot decide a case promptly, all he has to do is to ask the [Supreme Court] for a reasonable extension of time to resolve it,” the Court said.

“Respondent, however, did not avail himself of such relief.”