THE Supreme Court (SC) has ordered the dismissal of a Regional Trial Court  (RTC) judge after finding him guilty of gross ignorance of the law and conduct unbecoming   a judge for ordering the return of undocumented forest products to its supposed owner after being confiscated in favor of the government.

The court en banc issued the resolution based on the administrative complaint lodged by retired Lt. Gen. Alfonso Dagudag, head of Task Force Sagip Kalikasan, against Judge Maximo Paderanga of the RTC in Cagayan de Oro City before the the court administrator on July 8, 2005.

Dagudag filed the complaint after Paderanga granted the petition of a certain Roger Edma seeking the issuance of a writ of replevin ordering Dagudag and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Community Environment and Natural Resources Officer (DENR-Cenro) to return the forest products to their owner.

On April 14, 2005, Paderanga also denied Dagudag’s motion to quash the writ of replevin for lack of merit.

The SC said Paderanga should have dismissed the replevin suit outright since Edma failed to exhaust administrative remedies and that under the doctrine of primary jurisdiction, courts cannot take cognizance of cases pending before administrative agencies of special competence.

The High Court noted that the complaint for replevin itself stated that members of the DENR’s Task Force Sagip Kalikasan took the forest products and brought them to the DENR-Cenro.

This, according to the Court, should have alerted Paderanga that the DENR had custody of the forest products, that administrative proceedings may have been started, thus the replevin suit had to be dismissed outright.

Furthermore, the SC said the forest products are already in the legal custody of the DENR owing to violation of the Revised Forestry Code, thus, cannot be the subject of replevin.

“Judge Paderanga’s acts of taking cognizance of the replevin suit and of issuing the writ of replevin constitute gross ignorance of the law…. The rule that courts cannot prematurely take cognizance of cases pending before administrative agencies is basic. There was no reason for Judge Paderanga to make an exception to this rule,” the Court stressed.

Records of the case reveal that the National Police Regional Maritime Group in Western Visayas received information on January 30, 2005, that MV General Ricarte of NMC Container Lines Inc.  was shipping container vans containing illegal forest products from Cagayan de Oro to Cebu.

The shipments were falsely declared as cassava meal and corn grains to avoid inspection by the DENR.

A team, composed of representatives from National Police, the DENR and the Coast Guard, inspected the container vans at a port in Mandaue City, Cebu, and discovered undocumented forest products and the names of the shippers and consignees.

Dagudag claimed that the DENR considered the products as abandoned since nobody came out to claim them. Thus, on March 10, 2005, the said forest products were officially confiscated in favor of the government.

However, Edma filed a complaint before the lower court praying for a writ of replevin and seeking damages for the confiscation of the forest products.

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