MANILA, Philippines: The Supreme Court (SC) dismissed a judge in Oriental Mindoro who solicited bribes from lawyers, litigants, and elective officials in exchange for favorable actions.

In a per curiam decision, the court en banc found Roxas, Oriental Mindoro Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 43 Presiding Judge Edralin Reyes guilty of gross misconduct and ordered his dismissal from service.

The tribunal also ordered the forfeiture of Reyes' retirement and other benefits, except accrued leave credits, and his perpetual disqualification from re-employment in any branch or agency of the government, including government-owned or controlled corporations.

The Court ordered the judge to pay a fine of P17,500 for simple misconduct, for his negligence in supervising his court staff and ensuring proper and safe record- and evidence-keeping system in his court, resulting in missing firearms, exhibits, and pieces of evidence that were in court custody.

It said that in August 2018, the Supreme Court assigned a laptop to Reyes who was then acting presiding judge of RTC Branch 39. The laptop was later transferred to Judge Josephine Carranzo upon her appointment to Branch 39.

In December 2019, Carranzo returned the laptop to the Management Information Systems Office (MISO) of the SC for repair or replacement.

As standard procedure, the MISO examined the laptop and found a backup of iPhone messages, some of which showed that Reyes was engaged in corrupt practice. The MISO reported this to the Office of the Court Administrator (OCA), which hired a forensic expert to extract data from the laptop, resulting in the recovery of SMS/iMessage conversations, contact information, photos, videos, and iPhone notes.

The OCA Investigating Team found that Reyes was the user of the laptop and the owner of an iPhone 6S Plus from which the iMessages came.

Reyes used the said phone to communicate and ask for bribes from several lawyers and private individuals, in exchange for favorable action on cases pending before him. It became apparent that the judge frequently conversed with several lawyers with whom he has several questionable transactions.

As a result, three judicial audit teams were organized to investigate Branches 39, 41, and 43 of the Oriental Mindoro RTC.

The audit confirmed that Reyes solicited bribes in exchange for orders or resolutions granting bail or its reduction, decisions of acquittal, orders granting motion to travel abroad, and orders allowing a plea to a lesser offense.

The court said that a government-issued computer, even if privately controlled, is subject to regulation and monitoring by the government employer.

It ruled that the SMS/iMessage exchanges and the findings of the audit team were not excludable as there was no violation of Reyes' right to privacy.

For one, Reyes had no expectation of privacy for electronic communications stored in the subject laptop. The Court stressed that for judges and court employees, laptops and computers are provided to facilitate the courts' function of adjudicating cases, and are not meant for private purposes.

In Reyes' case, the SMS/iMessage correspondence were stored in the subject laptop and not in his private computer. Neither did it appear that the laptop was forcibly taken from him.

"These circumstances convince this Court that Judge Reyes cannot successfully claim that the State unduly intruded into a personal matter," the tribunal said.