The Supreme Court found the former spokesperson of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) “guilty” of the crime of indirect contempt after threatening and linking a judge in Manila to communist rebels.
This is related to the complaint against Lorraine Badoy after Manila Regional Trial Court presiding judge Marlo Magdoza-Malagar dismissed a petition seeking to declare the Communist Party of the Philippines and New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) illegal and terrorist.
“ACCORDINGLY, the Court finds Lorraine Marie T. Badoy-Partosa GUILTY of indirect contempt of court in accordance with Rule 71, Section 3(d) of the Rules of Court,” according to the Supreme Court’s 52-page decision published this Wednesday.
“She is FINED the amount of PHP 30,000.000 and WARNED that a repetition of the same or similar acts in the future shall merit a more severe sanction.”
It was only in 2022 when Badoy said the following words in a deleted Facebook post after Malagar refused the petition to declare the CPP-NPA a terrorist:
“So if I kill this judge and I do so out of my political belief that all allies of the CPP NPA NDF must be killed because there is no difference in my mind between a member of the CPP NPA NDF and their friends, then please be lenient with me.”
SC fines Badoy P30k after threats, red-tagging vs judge
The CPP-NPA and progressives previously claimed that the two formations were not terrorists but principled “revolutionaries.”
In September 2022, the Supreme Court warned Badoy that it is possible for her to be held in indirect contempt for resigning with such a statement, especially because it is said to encourage violence and endanger the lives of judges and their families.
Badoy initially defended his words and said it was not a threat but only a “hypothetical” argument while expressing his displeasure.
Despite Badoy’s excuses, the SC decided that the words released by Badoy were “vitriolic statements and outright threats”.
The Court added that what he did was no longer objective criticism and instead direct declarations that the court was used to “damage the public”. At the same time, he wrote the decision of “private citizens connected to the CPP-NPA-National Democratic Front of the Philippines.”
“Citizens have a right to scrutinize and criticize the Judiciary, but it is their ethical and societal obligation not to cross the line,” said the Court.
“In this case, this Court wields its contempt power due to the harmful, vicious, and unnecessary manner in which respondent launched her criticism, evident in the immediate aftereffects her statements had on the public.”
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