Dismissed Philippine Psychic Judge, elfin pals claim immortality

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The NEW YORK TIMES - World Briefing | Asia: The Philippines: Judge Seeks Reinstatement

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...756C0A9609C8B63

Published: May 4, 2006

A judge who claimed he could see into the future and admitted consulting three imaginary mystic dwarfs has asked for his job back after being fired by the Supreme Court. ''They should not have dismissed me for what I believed,'' the judge, Florentino Floro, said after filing his appeal.

Dismissed judge, elfin pals claim immortality

http://newsinfo.inq7.net/inquirerheadlines...rticle_id=13683

By Armand Nocum, PHILIPPINE DAILY Inquirer, Last updated 02:42am (Mla time) 08/06/2006

Published on page A1 of the August 6, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

HIS pals, “the imaginary dwarfs” Armand, Luis and Angel, may not have impressed the justices of the Supreme Court but, according to dismissed Judge Florentino Floro Jr., he and his three friends were superstars among psychics and believers of the occult throughout the world.

The high court last April dismissed the 53-year-old Floro, a Malabon Regional Trial Court judge, after finding that he was suffering from a mental “disabling condition” that it said made it impossible for him to discharge his judicial functions.

http://www.supremecourt.gov.ph/jurispruden...RTJ-99-1460.htm

Floro now claims that the news of his sacking—which came out on CNN, Time magazine and The New York Times, among more than a hundred international news agencies and publications—has given him and the three dwarfs “immortality.”

Mind-boggling delay

In CNN’s “Showbiz Tonight” show, co-host A.J. Hammer singled out the news story on Floro as the story of the day.

Although he joked that there was nothing wrong with consulting dwarfs from time to time, Hammer pointed to the three-year delay in the investigation of Floro as mind-boggling.

“Dwarfs, healing sessions, a three-year investigation? Now, that’s ridiculous!” he said.

In NBC’s “Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann” show, Floro was cited as “No. 2” in Countdown’s “three top newsmakers of the day” last April 11.

Floro graduated with second honors from the Ateneo de Manila University law school and placed 12th in the 1983 bar examinations with a grade of 87.55 percent.

“From obscurity, my name ... and the three mystic dwarfs became immortal not only in this country, not solely in the international broadcasts (CNN, MSN-NBC) and in almost all print media worldwide, but first and foremost, in the indelible memory of world judicial history,” he said in a letter to the court that he sent to Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban last Friday.

Occult blogs

Floro said news of his dismissal also figured in forum discussions in more than 1,000 blogs all over the world and elicited 10,000 replies, with believers of the occult and those who claim to see spirits and dwarfs siding with him.

In the letter, to which he attached about 200 pages of international news stories about him, Floro “begged” the court to act on his partial motion for reconsideration. He asked that he be returned to the service and given the 83 months’ worth of back wages that accumulated during the period of his preventive suspension before he was eventually dismissed.

The high court had rejected five such previous motions from Floro.

In a decision penned by Associate Justice Minita Chico-Nazario, the high court found Floro guilty of seven of the 13 administrative charges lodged against him by the Office of the Court Administrator (OCA).

During the three-year investigation of the case by the OCA, during which he was interviewed by doctors, psychologists and other medical experts, Floro admitted that he believed in “psychic visions” of the future because of his powers and mastery of “psychic phenomenon.”

Healing sessions

He also confessed that he had made a covenant with his “dwarf friends,” that he could write while in a trance and that he had been seen by several people in two places at the same time.

Questioned by court officials, Floro also admitted conducting healing sessions in his chambers during breaks.

“Psychic phenomena, even assuming such exist, have no place in a judiciary duty-bound to apply only positive law and, in its absence, equitable rules and principles in resolving controversies,” the court said in its en banc decision.

The court also ordered Floro to pay the amount of P40,000 as a penalty but awarded him three years’ worth of back salaries, allowances and other economic benefits.

‘Psychosis’

However, the high court said that it was not within its authority to conclude that Floro was “insane” but said it agreed with the findings of the Supreme Court clinic that showed Floro to be suffering from “psychosis.”

According to Floro, the international paranormal and legal discussions triggered by his case had made him “immortal.”

“When you hit it big in the print media internationally, you are immortal,” he said.

Similary, a Philippine News Paper became aware of New York Times, UK Times Onlin, CNN, MsNBC, and 100 other world reports including more than 1,000 blogs, forum discussions (including the report in this Talon House Forum) on Judge Floro's separation from service due to religious beliefs:

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/bac/2006/...r..sunfare.html

Monday, August 07, 2006, Arinday:

Mind-boggling dismissal

By G.H. Arinday, Jr., Sunfare

THE case of dismissed regional trial court Judge Florentino Floro Jr. is really one oddity which may yet found a space in the Guinness World of Records. The judge's claim that he is a psychic and could foresee the future, let alone his declaration that he was being helped by his three dwarf-friends while in a trance in writing his decisions, is considered as "psychosis" by the Supreme Court.

Such singular incident was taken notice by the believers of occult throughout the world and merited attention from no less than prestigious TV international programs like "Showbiz Tonight" and NBC's "Countdown" with Keith Olbermann.

Of course the High Tribunal did not declare the judge "insane" per se but suffering from psychosis. An honor student during his college days and a 12th placer in the 1983 Bar Examinations, the sacked magistrate is now enjoying his international fame and believes he has attained "immortality" together with his friends from the "elemental" realm.

But as A. J. Hammer of CNN's "Showbiz Tonight" asked why it took three long years for the highest court to decide, nobody has given a definite answer; it's mind-boggling.

In the world of esoteric or occultism which cannot be found in any legal perspectives like the positivist's theory as mentioned by the high court associate justice, yet there are believers and practitioners of "supernatural powers" like paranormal psychology or the idea of bilocation where one could be seen in two different places at the same time.

Mysticism does not sit well with any known and accepted sciences and more so on legal sciences which depend in most cases on empiricism.

And yet in many instances we are inclined to believe what Nostradamus wrote several centuries ago about his predictions on world major events like wars and assassinations of leading personalities.

If psychic phenomena have no place in the judicial plateau, then how would we explain the "a priori" of Immanuel Kant, who called his theory as "transcendental philosophy"?

How about those "spirit hunters" of those whose departure from life was consequent on horrible disasters?

While the former judge finds some kind of happiness of being "immortalized" in TV and print media all over the world, there could be answers in the near future the role of paranormal psychology in our lives.

How could we explain extra-sensory perceptions in layman's language and relate to the functions of the law? At present, we adhere faithfully to the verifiability principle in contrast to subjectivism?

This is not a brief for the ousted judge but the issues involved vis-à-vis his claim of being possessed of "psychic powers" must be inquired into thoroughly by those engaged in the same level of phenomenon.

Psychosis is a broad concept about one's mental processes and actuations, but in the inquiry conducted on the judge did not disclose any decision he has rendered marked with psychotic inclination or one with bizarre exposition of his thoughts.

With the unusual reaction of the occult believers all over the world, those engaged in neuro-sciences could very well take the case of the said judge for further studies, if only to show that friendly elementals do exist as well as the thoughts coming out in a trance.

We have to flesh out any substance or which may empirically suggests the "psychotic mind" and distinguish it from a deranged mental process. In reality, in total darkness the ears become subsidiary which enables us to know or hazard a guess.

If psychosis had taken hold of the former judge, his reputation of "being abnormal" person may have radically changed. This stigma shall forever his nameplate and his capacity to render legal service may be suspect.