E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Presiding Justice Diosdado M. Peralta
Sunday, 05 25, 2008
President Gloria Arroyo has stuffed the Judiciary with her appointees. Some of them are good, a handful of the lot are better, more than many are possibly undeserving, but some are suspected to be merely there to be beholden to her. And then there are those who are truly deserving, who secure their appointments by their own achievements. To that latter category is the Honorable Diosdado Madarang Peralta, the new presiding justice of the Sandiganbayan.
Born and bred in Laoag City, Peralta belongs to a prominent family. His late father, Elviro Lazo Peralta, was a CFI judge of Manila, law dean and law practitioner; and his mother, Catalina Guerrero Madarang, was a public school teacher. He is married to Fernanda Lampas, a certified public accountant and lawyer, who is presently an associate justice of the Court of Appeals. They have four children.
After the decision of the Sandiganbayan division, which includes Peralta, convicting former president Joseph Estrada of Plunder, the skeptics among the legal profession thought that he recklessly wrote finis to his career in the Judiciary. There was hardly any doubt in their minds, given the propensity of the appointing authority to go against public speculations.
But the skeptics had another think coming: Peralta was appointed presiding justice of the Sandiganbayan when former presiding justice Teresita de Castro got her much-deserved promotion to the Supreme Court (SC). This recognition of the achievements of these outstanding members of the Bench confirms our faith that meritocracy is, in some way and by some means, still alive in the Judiciary.
Peralta finished his law degree at the University of Santo Tomas in 1979, and rose from the ranks by dint of sheer hard work: as an assistant prosecutor of Laoag City from 1987 to 1988, and later on of Manila from 1988 to 1994. As a prosecutor, he acquitted himself well in the prosecution of heinous crimes and violations of the Dangerous Drugs Act which earned him the award of Outstanding Public Prosecutor of Manila for 1990, later the Most Outstanding Public Prosecutor of Manila for 1994, and a finalist in the Search for Outstanding Public Prosecutor in the 1994 Awards for Judicial Excellence.
Peralta would later join the Bench, first as presiding judge of Regional Trial Court, Branch 95 of Quezon City. It was during this term that he was singled out for the Special Centennial Award in the field of Criminal Law, from among the outstanding magistrates of the country, during the 100th Year Anniversary Celebration of the SC in June 2001.
A year later, the Foundation for Judicial Excellence showed the same eye for merit and achievement when it picked Peralta as Outstanding Regional Trial Court Judge among the foundation’s Judicial Excellence Awardees.
That Peralta is an academic, being a Bar reviewer, professor, lecturer and resource person at the UP Law Center, UST and other notable law schools, makes him, as my classmate Edgar Asuncion says, “a walking, talking, intimidating authority on Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure.”
Lest one would think that criminal law and procedure “is all that he’s got,” here are more of what constitutes the Peralta persona: He is a regular lecturer in substantive and procedural law of the Mandatory Continuing Legal Education Program for lawyers. He is a member of the Corps of Professors, Department of Criminal Law and lecturer of the Philippine Judicial Academy. Presently, he sits as a member of the sub-committee on Evidence of the Supreme Court Committee on the Revision of the Rules of Court.
The erudition of the man has already earned him numerous awards. He has climbed the judicial ladder at an amazingly fast pace. Laoag City has cited him as its Outstanding Citizen in the field of Law and Government Service. The Ulirang Ama Foundation has also cited him for his exemplary role as a family man despite the grueling and often thankless demands of his role in public service.
Peralta had hardly warmed his seat as presiding justice when revelations were made at the Senate in its investigations into graft-ridden Philcomsat regarding the alleged payment of a P2-million “Cash for Sandiganbayan – TRO POTC/Philcomsat” to unnamed court personnel.
Taking the issue by the horn and determined to keep the integrity of the Sandiganbayan intact, Peralta has proceeded to investigate the genesis of the "Cash for Sandiganbayan – TRO POTC/Philcomsat” and who really benefited from it. Peralta, it now seems and rightly so, is determined to put a comeuppance to the mercenary ways of the lawyer suspected to have facilitated the payment who, notwithstanding his previous suspension by the SC, and the long string of pending cases against him, wants to drag the good name of the Sandiganbayan as he slides downhill to his professional ignominy and perdition.
Last week, lawyer Lorna Kapunan invited me to observe the proceedings at the Sandiganbayan. Observing Peralta at work as he threw probing questions to the resource persons familiar with the details of this canard foisted on the Sandiganbayan, I was convinced that there should be no doubt Peralta would be able to preserve the integrity of the court.
And when he does, I’m sure that skeptics will again wag their tongues and cluck that Peralta would have no more hope of appointment for a higher position. After all, in reckless bravery Peralta is going after the untouchables in high places.
But sane people know otherwise: Presiding Justice Peralta — “Dado” to the many whom he whacked white be-dimpled balls with at the Paoay golf course many years ago -— regardless of the appointing authority should, a few years from now, be sitting in the SC, bringing to that highest court of the land the highest standards he has imposed upon himself.
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