The lawyer of Marie Roxanne "Plinky" Recto yesterday asked Bago Regional Trial Court Judge Henry Trocino to hear on Oct. 18 her motion for him to inhibit himself from hearing the case filed against her client by her former lover.

In the motion, which lawyer Rowena Guanzon said was filed before the Bago City RTC yesterday, she asked that Trocino cancel the Oct. 18 pre-trial of the case filed by Recto's former lover for child custody and prayer for a protection order, and instead hear her bid for him to inhibit himself from hearing it.

Guanzon said Trocino issued a "Temporary Protection Order" to Recto's former lover that allowed him custody of their 15-month-old child on Jan. 3, citing the Anti-Violence Against Women and Children Act of 2004 with "bad faith, malice, glaring partiality in gross ignorance of the law, and blatant violation of the Rule of Custody and the Rule on Violence Against Women and their Children." The Anti-VAWC is a law that protects women and children, Guanzon said, yet Trocino used it "against a woman and a mother."

Thus we are tasked not only to protect Recto and her son but also the Anti-VAWC from "being used by the very same men against whom the law gives women the remedy on a Temporary and Permanent Protection Order," Guanzon said in the motion for inhibition.

She also pointed out that when Trocino acted on the petition of the former lover, Recto already had a pending case against him, which includes custody of her child, before the Mandaluyong RTC.

She also pointed out that the judge gave the former lover of Recto a TPO without giving her client due process.

Guanzon said that, since Recto and her former lover are not married, all judges know that he cannot be the natural guardian of the child and has no standing to sue in the child's behalf.*

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