Supreme Courts issues show-cause order vs Badoy over Facebook posts concerning RTC judge

The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a show-cause order versus former National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) spokesman Loraine Marie Badoy, asking her to explain why she should not be cited in contempt of the court over her posts concerning Manila Judge Marlo Magdoza-Malagar.

In a statement, the SC resolved to order Badoy “to show cause within a non-extendible period of 30 calendar days from the time that this resolution is served on her, why she should not be cited in contempt of the judiciary and therefore of this court.”

Indirect contempt carries with it a penalty of up to 6 months imprisonment and fines.

Judge Marlo Malagar had earlier dismissed the Philippine government’s petition to judicially declare the Communist Party of the Philippines and New People’s Army as terrorists.

Malagar ruled that the insurgency group’s Ten Point Program, “readily shows that the CPP-NPA is organized or exist, not for the purpose of engaging in terrorism” and that none of the nine incidents attributed to the organization caused “widespread and extraordinary fear and panic” among the populace. She characterized the incidents as “pocket and sporadic occurrences”.

In her social media post dated September 24, Badoy said the decision of Manila judge Marlo Malagar on the CPP-NPA proscription case was written by “active operatives” of the group.

Badoy denied threatening the judge but that she was just exercising her “constitutional right to an opinion by questioning what has enraged the Filipino people.”

“A threat is a statement of an intention to inflict pain or damage. An ‘If -then’ statement, on the other hand, is merely a hypothetical syllogism that are workhorses of deductive logic that I needed to use to make my point,” she posted on Facebook last week.

“So, I hope I am clear here. It is not I who has the track record for murders, massacres, tortures, rape, and inhumanity but the terrorist CPP-NPA-NDF (National Democratic Front),” she added.

The SC Public Information Office said in a statement that Badoy should respond to the following issues under oath:

Whether or not she posted or caused the posting of the statements attacking the September 21, 2022 Resolution rendered by the Regional Trial Court in Civil Case No. R MNL-18-00925-CV in any or all of her social media accounts;

Whether or not her social media post encouraged more violent language against the judge concerned in any or all of her social media platforms;

Whether or not her post, in the context of social media and in the experience of similar incendiary comments here or abroad, was a clear incitement to produce violent actions against a judge and is likely to produce such act; and

Whether or not her statements on her social media accounts, implying violence on a judge, is part of her protected constitutional speech