A QUEZON City Regional Trial Court (QC-RTC) judge has inhibited herself from the longrunning Dengvaxia case filed by parents of the victims of the experimental anti-dengue shots years back.
On October 17, the case was raffled off to the sala of QC-RTC Branch 86 Judge Roslyn Rabara-Tria after Branch 229 Judge Cleto Villacorta III decided to recuse himself from further trying the second batch of 35 Dengvaxia cases.
Villacorta detached himself from the controversial criminal cases after dismissing the first batch of eight cases, citing “lack of evidence.”
Court records show that Judge Rabara-Tria had already handled the case before but inhibited herself from the case because her husband was the counsel of two of the respondents.
After the Office of the Clerk of Court conducted the raffling of the case, the same was assigned to Tria, whose sala is one of the family courts in the city that was designated by the Supreme Court to exclusively handle all Dengvaxia-related cases.
A day after Branch 86 was chosen to handle the Dengvaxia cases, Rabara-Tria issued an order — a copy of which was obtained by The Manila Times — inhibiting herself.
“Considering that the undersigned is the wife of Atty. Alberto Tria of Melgar Tria, Tria & Laurente Law Offices, who is the counsel of record of the accused Maria Lourdes Santiago and Dr. Rosalind Vianzon, she is disqualified under the law to try and hear these cases,” the order said.
She cited Section 1 of Rule 137 of the Rules of Court as her basis for inhibiting herself from handling the cases.
It states that: “No judge or judicial officer shall sit in any case, in which he, or his wife or child, is peculiarly interested was heir, legatee, creditor or otherwise, or in which he is related to either party within the sixth degree of consanguinity or affinity or to counsel within the fourth degree.”
The prosecution panel led by City Prosecutor Vimar Barcellano and Deputy Chief Prosecutor Irene Resurreccion-Medrano questioned the impartiality of Villacorta to try and hear the second batch of 35 cases.
The prosecutors said that Villacorta’s decision to recuse himself from further handling the case was a good opportunity for the prosecution to present their evidence “before a magistrate who is not only fair and impartial but who actually appears without any doubt to be fair and impartial.”
Their motion was also based on their claim that the evidence and arguments they would present would be the same as the first batch of eight cases, which Villacorta had already dismissed, except for one case involving Dr. Mario Baquilod.
Regarding Rabara-Tria’s decision to also inhibit herself, they said they had already expected it because “she knew that there would be a conflict of interest because of her husband, who is a counsel of two accused in the instant case.”
Aside from the principal accused, former health secretary and now Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin, other respondents include the top executives of vaccine manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur Inc. and vaccine distributor Zuellig Pharma and officials of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, Philippine Children’s Medical Center and Food and Drug Administration.
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