The Sandiganbayan has denied the motions of former justice secretary Hernando "Nani" B. Perez and his brother-in-law Ramon Antonio Arceo Jr., and businessman Ernest de Leon Escaler to inhibit its justices handling the case for forfeiture of unlawfully acquired properties filed against them.
Perez, Arceo, Escaler, and Perez's wife Rosario have been named respondents in the civil case docketed as SB-14-CVL-0002 for Forfeiture of Unlawfully Acquired Properties under Republic Act No. 1379.
The case stemmed from the alleged demand made by Perez for $2 million dollars from former Manila congressman Mario Crespo, known as Mark Jimenez, in 2001.
The money was supposedly in exchange for the exclusion of Jimenez in the plunder investigation against former President Joseph "Erap" Estrada over the multi-billion-peso Caliraya-Botocan-Kalayaan (CBK) power plant project.
Perez and Arceo claimed that the justices of the Sandiganbayan's third division "may no longer have the cold neutrality of impartial judges" after they accepted the prosecution's formal offer of evidence even though these "refer more to probative value rather than admissibility."
Escaler, on the other hand, argued that there have been "several factual circumstances in the instant case showing acts or conduct by this Honorable Third Division that are... clearly indicative of violation of the laws, rules, and prevailing jurisprudence, and manifest arbitrariness and/or prejudice, if not gross ignorance of the law, which warrant its inhibitions."
However, the anti-graft court denied their motions for being devoid of merit. "There is no just and valid ground to warrant the grant of the inhibition of the members of the Third Division," the anti-graft court ruled.
The court explained that repeated rulings against a litigant, no matter how erroneous and vigorously and consistently expressed, are not a basis for disqualification of a judge on grounds of bias and prejudice.
"Extrinsic evidence is required to establish bias, bad faith, malice or corrupt purpose, in addition to the palpable error which may be inferred from the decision or order itself," it stressed.
Perez, Arceo, and Escaler have not alleged that the court's earlier ruling were issued with bad faith, malice, or corrupt purposes. They did not even present "a scintilla of evidence" that would prove so, the court added.
"Indeed, they are merely relying on the purported erroneousness of the subject resolutions. This simply falls short of the requirement for extrinsic evidence to establish bias and partiality for the inhibition of judges," the court also said.
The 11-page resolution dated April 29 was written by Presiding Justice Amparo M. Cabotaje-Tang with the concurrence of Associate Justices Bernelito R. Fernandez and Ronald B. Moreno.