21 comments to “Return of Florentino V. Floro and the Three Dwarfs”

1. P.C.:
   29 May 2006, on 5:59 pm

   This letter makes him sound dumber than the earlier article. They’re not dwarfs, but they are spirit guides. I gave him pass before because at least little people are real, even if in his mind they had magical powers.

   I wonder whose mind he is trying to convince that he is sane, ours or his?

2. Jimmer:
   29 May 2006, on 7:24 pm

   Well ahhh yeahh? Florentino.
   You just hang in there bucckaroo.

3. King Retard:
   29 May 2006, on 10:54 pm

   Wow. I’ve been offline for the last several days. Did I really get this guy to send us a letter? Too cool if it’s true and kudos Sean if it’s not.

4. Sean:
   29 May 2006, on 11:39 pm

   Well, it looks like he sent it to a bunch of media outlets, with customized headers for each. I just love seeing “King Retard” on such a formal (if insane) letter. And no, I did not make this up.

5. King Retard:
   29 May 2006, on 11:44 pm

   I probably love it even more.

6. I.N.R.I. the 8th:
   30 May 2006, on 2:09 am

   “I admit that GOD has chosen me to be the instrument to CLEAN the Philippine Supreme Court and Judiciary of CORRUPTION and abuse of power — by inflicting illnesses.”

   This is awesome. A Filipino X-Man with the power to cleanse through the hurling of disease- though it might not be much use to hurl throat cancer at your enemy in time sensitive, mano a mano combat. Sure, in the big picture, like smallpoxed blankets to the indigenous Americans, it would be pretty devastating but how are you gonna make a movie out of that? This is me, raindogzilla, postin under a nom de plume lest Florentino “Pestilence” Floro, Jr. should hurl something at me.

7. Sean:
   30 May 2006, on 6:57 am

   Yeah, raindog… That is one bad-ass slo-mo power, huh? Kinda like Crop Failure Girl, who can hurl a likelihood of your crops failing next year or the year after that. A great slow-mo power that only works against farmers.

   And Bad Spin Boy, who can curse you with crappy political spin on everything you do for the next four years, with ever-increasing incidents of bad press.

   What other kick-ass, slow-motion powers can we think of?

8. God is for Suckers! » Who GifS a Fuck?:
   30 May 2006, on 7:45 am

   [...] 1) King Retard had the honor of receiving a customized form letter, along with “66 WORLD REPORTS/BLOGS,” from the lunatic Filipino outlaw judge Florentino (”I hurl illnesses”) Floro — thanks to this post back in early May. Like I said in the comment thread, how awesome that this guy took the time to formally cite “King Retard” and “Stupidity” (one can only assume he didn’t quite know what the words meant — or that, like any good lawyer, he was just being thorough) in the header of his nutjob press release. [...]

9. Sharona:
   30 May 2006, on 8:40 am

   I’ve often wondered WHY it is that religious nut job WACKOS find it necessary to capitalize their FAIRY TALE RANTINGS in certain places that don’t ALWAYS make SPECIAL sense. Do all caps somehow LEND their rantings some sort of LEGITIMACY? Or is it because those are the words the VOICES in their HEADS emphasize more LOUDLY?

   COULD it be that THEY just don’t KNOW how to ADEQUATELY use THE language?

   GLORY!

   (And all HAIL the magic persons who prefer to be called “Little People of Supernatural and Paranormal Prescience,” thank you VERY much, if you don’t MIND.)

10. Sean:
    30 May 2006, on 8:44 am

    Sharona: was having that very same discussion today! Selective, psychotic all-capping. There must be a paper on it somewhere.

11. Sharona:
    30 May 2006, on 9:04 am

    Someone should make that topic their thesis. That would be fun to research and a kickass read, unlike “Shorn Tresses in American Early Colonial Minor Literature.”

12. King Retard:
    30 May 2006, on 12:31 pm

    “What other kick-ass, slow-motion powers can we think of?”

    How about the power to make someone age 10% faster than their normal rate?

13. raindogzilla:
    30 May 2006, on 1:31 pm

    TOBAKO- with the ability to make his foe smoke for the next forty to fifty years, resulting in emphysema and/or lung cancer!

    JOHN DEERE- with the ability to make the grass grow 66% faster, effectively trapping his lawn-obsessed foe at home trimming, edging, weeding, fertilizing, and, of course, mowing- in shorts and dark dress socks!

    THE CHAFER- irritates the skin of the inner thighs at 50 paces, not stopping the enemy but slowing him up and making him walk funny! Usually works in tandem with;

    THE BUNCHER- makes women’s underwear creep up into nooks and crannies it ought not be in, forcing the afflicted to lose time and face public ridicule while they root it out!

    MERCURIO- spoon feeds diluted mercury to wild salmon which will one day wind up with a schmear on his foe’s bagel!

14. Sean:
    30 May 2006, on 1:40 pm

    Haha, Raindog. You funny.

    KR: I think yours needs a little more to it, man. How about MOTHER-IN-LAW MAN: Makes your wife’s mother move in with you with a single wave of his hand. You thereby age 10% faster.

15. King Retard:
    30 May 2006, on 2:01 pm

    Sean said: “KR: I think yours needs a little more to it, man. How about MOTHER-IN-LAW MAN: Makes your wife’s mother move in with you with a single wave of his hand. You thereby age 10% faster.”

    Ok, here we go:

    Mother-In-Law Man

    Powers: Makes your mother-in-law move in with you, resulting in a 10% increase in aging, a slight increase in blood pressure, and an increase in arguments between you and your spouse, resulting in an overall decrease in lifestyle quality.

    The Know-Nothing Know-it-All

    Powers: The KNKIA is always ready to jump in and incorrectly correct what you just said. He is smug in his knowledge, despite the fact that he has the details or information wrong. He causes frustration by telling you that you’re wrong when you’re clearly correct. Furthermore, when presented with a request for proof of his outlandish claims, he will resort to telling you he “read it somewhere” or that you should “just trust him, he know what he’s talking about.”

16. Lya Kahlo:
    30 May 2006, on 2:44 pm

    “The Know-Nothing Know-it-All”

    Hm. That sounds like every single theist we’ve ever seen here.

17. Eve:
    30 May 2006, on 3:45 pm

    I’m sorry; this letter is just so funny I’ve got to quote from it, even with no obvious reason why:

    TRUTH:
    I never used the word DWARVES in any DECISION, and I never consulted any imaginary dwarf to pen my decisions, my detractors submitted these false evidence or lies; and what I do believed in is: in the so-called SPIRIT GUIDES or PROTECTORS. LUIS, is the KING OF ALL KINGS of ELEMENTALS/spirits worldwide; and he is GOD’s ANGEL (Genesis, Exodus, etc.)

    Apparently he’s recently been promoted over the angels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael…

    I REPEAT, LUIS, ARMAND AND ANGEL ARE NOT THE LOWLY DWARVES OR GNOMNES BUT SPIRIT GUIDES AND PROTECTORS THAT GOD HAD CHOSES AS INSTRUMENTS TO RID THE PHILIPPINE JUDICIARY OF MISFITS AND ROTTEN EGGS, THOSE THAT FAIL TO DELIVER IMPARTIAL JUSTICE BECAUSE OF MONEY, GREASE OR GRAFT MONEY.

    “Rotten eggs”…”grease”…anybody else see a pattern here (aside from the caps, that is)?

    But your 66 WORLD REPORTS vindicated me: this is the FIRST in world judicial history that a CASE had been REPORTED with GREAT MAGNITUDE, with COMPASSION and SARCASM, in my favor.
    THANKS.

    You’re welcome! We here at GifS, at any rate, have no problem reporting with SARCASM!

    I seem to recall a while back predicting that a Filipino would do something nutty in the name of “faith…” OHMIGOD I’m PSYCHIC!

18. Deacon Barry:
    30 May 2006, on 6:33 pm

    66 world reports is very close to 666. You find yourself mentally adding the missing number. When you see capitalised words in a piece of writing - BEWARE! Especially if GOD or his ANGELS are mentioned (or GNOMNES)
    If upper and lower cases are mixed, then you’ve got Neil Gaiman’s DeLiRiUm as a commentor.

19. Edwardson:
    2 June 2006, on 12:21 pm

    Floro finally found my blog and pasted an insanely long post: http://hokum-balderdash.blogspot.com/2006/05/gods-chosen-one-is-on-loose.html There’s an interview with Boy Abunda toward the end. Unfortunately, it’s mostly in Tagalog. I see that Mr. ESP/paranormal Jaime Licauco’s in there too. And a psychologist who believes in it. How peachy. A gathering of woowoos.

20. Judge Florentino V. Floro, Jr.:
    21 June 2006, on 1:40 am

    Thanks for your Comments. May I please submit a rejoinder thereto (by posting hereunder articles on the matter by California Justice Bedsworth and UK’s silk barrister David Pannick).
    Sincerely,
    Judge Floro

    http://www.acriminalwasteofspace.com/journal_beds.asp,

    Judges and Dwarfs don’t mix, by Justice William Bedsworth, June 12, 2006

    Judges are, by and large, not the flamingos of the justice swamp. Present company excluded, we tend to be temperate, conservative1 and … well, judicious. For every one of us who wears Hawaiian shirts and cowboy boots to work,2 there are scores wearing rep ties and wing tips. That’s just how we are.

    It’s also how we got here. I’ve been watching this system for 35 years and I’ve pretty much concluded that the first question — maybe not the most important one, but the first one — the governor asks about any judicial candidate is, “What are the chances I’ll ever see this person’s name again if I appoint him/her?” Only if the appointments secretary answers, “Zero. No chance. Zip, zilch, nada, bupkis, ain’t gonna happen; fuhgeddaboudit” does the process go any further.

    Because unless the appointments secretary can absolutely guarantee the governor that he will never pick up his morning paper and read, “Judge Arrested for Molesting Sheep,” or “Local Jurist Marries 13-Year-Old Cousin,” the application goes into the round file faster than a gum wrapper. Governors want their judges to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God,” but mostly they just want them to stay out of the headlines.

    All of which, of course, makes my own appointment a miracle on the order of Fatima or Lourdes. My name shows up in newspapers and magazines every month. I had already published a book of psychotherapeutic meanderings — like the one you’re reading now — by the time I reached Pete Wilson’s appointments secretary. I am almost certainly the most over-exposed judge in the history of the state.3 As my colleagues would hasten to point out, I do not fit the profile.

    Yet here I am. I can only assume I am a Roman Hruska appointment. You remember Roman Hruska. He was the senator from Nebraska who argued in favor of G. Harrold Carswell’s confirmation to the United States Supreme Court on the basis that “Even if he was mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance? We can’t all be Brandeises and Cardozos and Frankfurters and stuff like that there.”4

    I assume John Davies, who has otherwise acquitted himself spectacularly as appointments secretary for two governors, went back into Pete Wilson’s office after interviewing me and said, “They can’t all be Brandeises and Cardozos and Frankfurters.”5

    But something about me must have reassured Davies. He required me to submit a copy of my first book while I was under consideration. Having read it, he probably figured I’d already said about all the crazy stuff I could say.6

    By and large, though, governors tend to regard a tendency to say crazy stuff as a negative quality in a prospective judge. They’re looking not so much for “flamboyant and entertaining” as “Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean and Reverent.” Go figure.7

    So it astounds me that there is a publication called … so help me … the Judicial Conduct Reporter. You would not think a group of people chosen in large measure for their ability not to crash and burn on the six o’clock news could support a quarterly magazine devoted entirely to cataloguing their sins. But they do.

    Honest. I get this thing every three months. It’s put out by the American Judicature Society, and exists solely to chronicle the peccadilloes of me and my colleagues, apparently in the futile hope that we will learn from our mistakes.

    I’ll pause here until you stop laughing at the concept of an educable judge.

    Really, I’m not going to continue until you stop.

    OK, are you done?

    Fine.

    Every quarter the Judicial Conduct Reporter lands on my desk and I put aside whatever I’m working on to read it. Talk about psychotherapy. I start out thinking myself a flawed human being, struggling to get as many right as I can and hoping against hope I won’t disappoint the people who put me here. By the time I’m finished, I think I’m ready for the Hall of Fame. Forget Brandeis and Cardozo, I feel like Gandhi. The things other judges are doing make me want to call Davies and ask what took him so long!

    Usually the Judicial Conduct Reporters have a theme. Usually it’s sexual harassment. Sexual harassment seems to be the judicial equivalent of the common cold. But there are other themes: bullying people, inappropriate gifts, ill-advised charitable activities.

    One of my favorites was “Judicial Road Rage.” This was a collection of guys8 who didn’t just yell at another motorist or flip them off, but had them arrested. These people actually sent their bailiffs out, or called the sheriff, and had motorists whose driving offended them tossed into the hoosegow. Not just one guy who did that, several of them! A gaggle!

    At the risk of sounding provincial, most of these do not involve California judges. Whether it reflects strong moral fiber or mere lack of imagination, our judges don’t seem as prone to things like making decisions by flipping a coin (summer 2003) or falsely claiming to have won the Medal of Honor (summer 1995).

    Nor do we talk to imaginary mystic dwarfs.

    Yep. That’s what it says: imaginary mystic dwarfs.

    Until today, I would not have considered my lack of involvement with imaginary mystic dwarfs a great achievement. Until today, I would not have understood it as a compliment if someone said, “I’ve got some issues with Bedsworth; about the best thing I can say about him is he doesn’t talk to imaginary mystic dwarfs.” But today I found out the mystic dwarf thing is grounds for removal of a judge in the Philippines.

    According to Reuters, “A Philippine judge who claimed he could see into the future and admitted consulting imaginary mystic dwarfs has asked for his job back after being sacked by the country’s Supreme Court.”

    Wow. I’m too old to use the word “awesome,” but I just don’t know how else to describe that. As judicial flameouts go, that’s Krakatoa. My hat’s off to former-Judge Florentino Floro and his … uh … staff.

    This beats the hell out of anything the Judicial Conduct Reporter’s come up with lately. And I just love it. I love it because it appeared when I was right up against my deadline.9 I love it because it makes me feel superior. I love it because I’ve never previously gotten to type the phrase “imaginary mystic dwarfs.” And I love it because the guy is APPEALING!

    As near as I can determine, he’s making this out to be a freedom of religion issue. He says, “They should not have dismissed me for what I believed.” Certainly, I can sympathize with that position. The prospect of judges being removed because of their personal belief systems is anathema to all of us.

    But I think once it’s established that you, “told investigators that three mystic dwarfs — Armand, Luis and Angel — helped you carry out healing sessions during breaks in chambers,” you gotta expect to trudge through a little grief. I mean, these aren’t just your ordinary, garden-variety, run-of-the-mill imaginary mystic dwarfs. These are imaginary mystic healing dwarfs!

    And you’re on a first-name basis with them.

    You gotta expect the local bar to be a little leery when you tell ‘em, “Counsel, I regret that I cannot grant your motion. But if you’ll just step into chambers, me and Luis and Armand will use our mystic powers to cure that arthritic knee of yours.”

    You’ve especially gotta expect it if you’re able to see into the future. Reuters doesn’t elaborate on just what the judge could see in the future — or whether Armand, Luis and Angel were not only mystic and therapeutic, but precognitive as well — but I’m not sure saying you can see into the future requires much elaboration. Certainly it made Judge Floro’s future pretty clear.

    I have no doubt that if I had told ANY of the lawyers who appeared before me, EVER, that me and the mystic healing dwarfs were gonna cure a little deafness and then go out for a run over the lunch hour and that when we returned we’d have the name of next year’s Preakness winner, Davies would have docked me some points.

    Certainly the Philippine Supreme Court thinks it lowers your score. Although they were very diplomatic about it. According to Reuters, “The Supreme Court said it was not within its expertise to conclude that Floro was insane, but agreed with the court clinic’s finding that he was psychotic.”

    I’m not sure just what distinction they were drawing here. They may have been saying, “We’re not psychiatrists, so we can’t say he’s gone stark, staring loony tunes on us, but we certainly agree with the doctors who said it.” Or they may have concluded that, in today’s world, one psychosis hardly differentiates you from the rest of society; it takes at least two or three to qualify for a diagnosis of insanity.

    Either way, they confiscated his robe and his ruby slippers and fined him $780.10

    And, mirabile dictu, Judge Floro is appealing. I don’t have a clue who to.11 Who do you appeal to after the Philippine Supreme Court disrobes you? Seems to me, you and the dwarfs have pretty much topped out when you lose in your nation’s supreme court. I can’t really see The Hague taking this one on.

    But Judge Floro has vowed an appeal, and, since he can see into the future, I have to assume it’s gonna come to pass.

    And I’m not about to take a chance that I might miss the outcome of this saga. I’m going online as soon as I finish writing this to subscribe to the Philippine Judicial Conduct Quarterly.

    Then I’m gonna contact the dwarfs and see if they can do anything about my putting.
    1 In the true sense of the word; not the one co-opted by self-serving politicians. back
    2 And, come to think of it, there may only be one of us. back
    3 “An ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own.” back
    4 Honest; he actually said “stuff like that there” on the floor of the United States Senate. back
    5 The words “and like that there” could never come out of John Davies’ mouth. Mine, yes; John Davies,’ never. back
    6 “That, General Napoleon, is the little town of Waterloo; it’s of no strategic significance.” back
    7 I am, generally, cheerful. back
    8 Once again, the other gender lags sadly behind. Very few women make the Judicial Conduct Reporter. Apparently there is a glass floor beneath the glass ceiling. back
    9 Deadlines are a … well, having already used the word “hell” in this column, I’ll just let you imagine what I think about deadlines. I don’t want to show up in the Judicial Conduct Reporter for profanity. That’s like going to hell for a dietary violation. back
    10 I have no idea how they came up with $780. Maybe that was the cost of the psychiatric evaluation. After all, it couldn’t have taken long. back
    11 Yeah, I know the grammar is questionable, but how many times in your life do you get a chance to write six consecutive rhyming words? Go ahead, find six consecutive rhyming words in the works of Oliver Wendell Holmes — either of them — I dare you.back

    Posted by William W. Bedsworth on Monday, June 12, 2006 at 18:01 Comments (1)
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,28010-2208464,00.html
    TIMES ONLINE, http://www.timesonline.co.uk., June 6. 2006.

    I used to be a judge but I’m all right now . . .
    by David Pannick QC

    LUNACY on the Bench is not as common as prime ministers and home secretaries stung by judgments critical of their policies like to suggest. The recent decision of the Supreme Court of the Philippines to dismiss Judge Florentino V. Floro Jr as a judge of the Regional Trial Court in Malabon City because of a “medically disabling condition of the mind” that rendered him “unfit to discharge the functions of his office” repays careful consideration by any student of the judiciary.
    Judge Floro first applied for appointment to the Bench in 1995. The mandatory psychological evaluation by the Supreme Court Clinic Services (memo to the Lord Chancellor: do not even consider this) revealed “evidence of ego disintegration”. Judge Floro voluntarily withdrew his application. He reapplied in 1998, but the evaluation was again negative, identifying problems with self-esteem and mood swings. But Judge Floro was allowed to rely on a more favourable assessment from private practitioners. He began work as a judge in November 1998.

    The appointment was not a great success. Less than eight months later, the Supreme Court suspended Judge Floro while complaints against him were investigated. It took nearly seven years to complete the inquiries, partly because of the delaying tactics by the judge. In March Justice Chico-Nazario, for a unanimous 14-strong Supreme Court, decided that Judge Floro should be dismissed from the Bench.
    In 1890 Mr Justice Stephen became incapable of acting in a judicious manner by reason of mental illness. And in the 1950s, a High Court judge who lost his faculties was persuaded to resign only when no work was assigned to him. But there is, I think, no precedent for Judge Floro’s unusual manner of opening proceedings in his courtroom. A formal, “All rise”, or even a jocular, “Here comes the judge”, might be acceptable. But not the introductory statement to all those present in court that Judge Floro was “a Bar topnotcher” who passed the 1983 Bar Examinations “with an average score of 87.55 per cent”. There would follow a reading from the Bible, after which Judge Floro would answer questions on the scriptural text of the day. The judge’s visiting card also stated that he was a “Bar exams topnotcher (87.55 per cent)” with “full second honours”. As the Supreme Court concluded, litigants might well interpret all this “as a sign of insecurity”.
    What caused the Supreme Court most concern, and who can blame them, was Judge Floro’s belief that he enjoyed qualities lacked by other members of the judiciary. Judge Floro is not the first judge to have an inflated opinion of his own abilities, but there are not many who have claimed special powers as “the No 5 psychic in the country”. (The Supreme Court judgment unfortunately provides no information on whether the top four also have legal qualifications and, if so, what marks they obtained in the Bar exams.) In a variation of dress-down Fridays, Judge Floro changed from blue court robes to black each Friday “to recharge his psychic powers”. He was, he suggested, the angel of death and able to inflict pain and sickness on people appearing in his court (a valuable but perhaps disproportionate sanction in dealing with vexatious litigants).
    The judge believed that he could write while in a trance, and he had, he insisted, “been seen by several people to have been in two places at the same time”, a very useful attribute in reducing the waiting lists for pending cases. Most impressive of all, Judge Floro had made a covenant with “three dwarf friends named Luis, Armand and Angel”, who would, unseen by others, provide him with assistance in court (presumably when counsel were unable to provide a page reference in the bundles of evidence).
    Very generously in the circumstances, the Supreme Court emphasised that it was not ruling that Judge Floro was insane. He was merely suffering from a psychosis that appeared to “cloud his judgment” and so undermined his competence and objectivity. Justice Chico-Nazario concluded that psychic phenomena, “even assuming such exist” (a wise judge never decides more than is necessary to dispose of the case), have no place in jurisprudence. Though it would, I suppose, be helpful to be able accurately to predict how the Supreme Court would deal with a case, and so avoid the expense and delay of waiting for their decisions.
    The Supreme Court let Judge Floro down from the Bench as lightly as possible. No one is to blame as “we cannot condemn people for their faulty genes and/or adverse environment — factors they have no control over”. Judge Floro “may be dysfunctional as a judge” but “may still be successful in other areas of endeavour”. Especially, of course, as he can rely on the help of those three dwarf friends.
    The author is a practising barrister at Blackstone Chambers and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.

21. God is for Suckers! » Blog Archive » Virus Mail from Judge El Dwarfo:
    27 July 2006, on 4:24 pm

    [...] So check this out. The crazed Filipino judge Florentino V. Floro is now swamping us with attachments that contain viruses. In the last 24 hours we have received a JPG, a Windows executable and a zip archive all containing unknown virusues, all from the original address this lunatic first wrote to us from: [...]