BEHIND BARS

“JUDGE N FACES JAIL!” Screamed the banner story, with a matching picture of me scowling.

Great start to a new day. Crape Diem

Being Cebu’s judicial “media darling” seems to have inured me from such scandals. I have calluses on my face, figuratively speaking.

Ironically, I had just put up the picture below on the sidebar.
If I never see the insides of a detention cell, those who wish that I do may take a look and salivate. The picture was taken when we were converting a laundry room into my daughter’s new bedroom. Installing the prefab windows, we realized what they looked like and couldn’t resist the photo opportunity.

To emphasize how close I had come to incarceration, fines against judges are usually imposed by means of salary deductions. In my case, the Supreme Court gave me ten days to come up with the moolah or spend time in the friendly neighborhood NBI detention cell (at least I think it should be the NBI where a good friend of mine and respectable lawyer suffered a similar fate. Great men spend jail time, no?).

Well, with the fine imposed being roughly equal to a month’s pay (remember, HONEST JUDGE = NOT RICH), and just ten days to put it up, I wondered if I should call for reservations. Thank God for friends and relatives who offered their moral AND financial support, I don’t have to go begging or book passage to Alcatraz.