Ex-judge who ‘predicted’ Maguindanao massacre eyes chief justice post

A Malabon judge who was kicked out of his job for claiming he consulted imaginary mystic dwarfs and who claimed to have predicted the Nov. 23 Maguindanao massacre has nominated himself for the soon-to-be-vacated chief justice post. Florentino Floro was among the three aspirants who beat the Feb. 4 deadline of the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) for the submission of their application for the top judiciary post. The others were Supreme Court Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo-de Castro and Deputy Ombudsman for Luzon Victor Fernandez. Floro was presiding judge of the Malabon Regional Trial Court Branch 73 before he was dismissed in 2006 due to “medically disabling condition of the mind that renders him unfit to discharge the functions of his office." He was sued by the Office of the Court Administrator after his own judicial staff lodged 13 administrative cases against him. The SC found him guilty of seven charges and fined him P40,000 and removed him from his position. Clairvoyant In his motion, Floro, a self-proclaimed clairvoyant, said the SC should not allow itself be dictated upon by a proceeding to remove judges based on the medical incapacity of doctors, whose claims he said are inadmissible for being mere hearsay. Among the “phenomena" that he supposedly predicted were the downfall of the Estrada regime, the 2001 terrorist attack at the World Trade Center in the United States, and the July 2001 fire that gutted the Malabon Hall of Justice, which he said he predicted on July 18, 1999. He also claimed to have predicted the inclusion of journalists in the massacre of 57 people in Maguindanao. Floro said in his motion that he should not be held liable for the justices’ emotional incapability to accept his “gift." Six contenders The nomination of Floro, De Castro and Fernandez has brought the number of contenders for chief justice to six. The post will be vacated by Chief Reynato Puno on May 17 when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 70. The JBC had automatically considered for nominations of Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, Associate Justices Renato Corona, Conchita Carpio-Morales, Presbitero Velasco Jr. and Antonio Eduardo Nachura. Velasco and Nachura, however, declined their inclusion in the list. Carpio and Morales said that they are accepting their nomination provided that their names would be submitted to whoever will win as president in the May 10 elections. They said this was pursuant to the constitutional ban barring the incumbent president from making appointments two months before elections until the end of her term. Corona, on the other hand, accepted his nomination without ascribing any condition for his acceptance. - KBK, GMANews.TV