Mayor Magdaleno Peña said yesterday in a press release that a former stenographer who took notes of important proceedings in the Supreme Court for nine years lashed at justices of the tribunal who, according to her, erred in ordering the disbarment of a lawyer on
“inadequate and insufficient” grounds.

Peña said that Fe Malou Castelo, who was SC stenographer from 1997 to 2006, in an affidavit dated May 25, 2012,also backed his claims that there was “cover up” in the complaints he filed against some
justices and that the documents he submitted pertaining to an allegedly forged resolution issued in November 2002 by then First Division member Associate Justice Antonio Carpio,newly appointed by then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, were authentic, his press release added.

The press release quoted Castelo as saying, “Throughout my tenure as a stenographer with the SC, I have never experienced an instance wherein any Justice or Division, or the en banc for that matter, changed the actions taken and agreed upon during the deliberations, without having the particular case called again.”

In the same press release Peña added that she was referring to his accusation that Carpio gave undue favors to the defunct Urban Bank which petitioned the SC to stop Peña and the Deputy Sheriff of Bago City Regional Trial Court Branch 62 from perfecting the sale of the bank’s auctioned assets- the 85 Urban Bank Plaza condominium units.

Carpio allegedly issued a resolution granting the bank’s motion when documents showed that the Division only “noted,” it did not act on it, the press release said, adding that Castelo’s affidavit was submitted as part of Peña’s Motion for Reconsideration dated June 20, 2012 in the disbarment case where he said he “cannot seriously hope tobe reinstated as a member of the Philippine Bar as long as the members of this Honorable Court, as an ‘old boys club’, continue to adhere to misplaced professional courtesy by protecting one of their own, rather than the truth,” it added.*

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