Negros church worker, teacher lose bid to junk murder raps but get order for new probe

From InterAksyon (Feb 22): Negros church worker, teacher lose bid to junk murder raps but get order for new probe



Rodel Rojo, husband of detained church worker Anecita, who is accused of being among communist rebels responsible for killing an Army lieutenant in Negros Occidental, waits to be let into the jail in Cadiz City for a Valentine's Day visit. (photo by Julius Mariveles, InterAksyon.com)

A church worker and a teacher accused of participating in the killing of an Army lieutenant by communist rebels in Negros Occidental lost their bid to have the charges against them quashed but the judge hearing their case ordered the reinvestigation of the accusations against them.

The lawyers of church worker Anecita “Cheche” Rojo and teacher Zara Reboton Alvarez said the decision of Cadiz City Regional Trial Court Judge Renato Muñez was a “positive development” even as they stressed that the two women had been deprived of their right to due process.

The two are among more than 50 persons accused of the death of Lieutenant Archie Polenzo during an encounter on March 7, 2010.

Alvarez was arrested October 30 last year by policemen and soldiers of the Army’s 62nd Infantry Battalion, while Rojo was seized from the convent of the Bago Cityu church last December by the police’s Regional Intelligence Unit.

Rojo said the officers who arrested her presented no warrant and dragged her down the convent stairs into a waiting van.

Both women are detained at the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology in Cadiz.
In his order dated February 5, Muñez found it “… proper that a reinvestigation be conducted by the prosecution in order not to deprive both accused of their right to due process” and gave Cadiz prosecutor Gwendolyn Tiu 30 days to submit her resolution.
A subpoena Muñez issued on February 19 also ordered the two accused to submit their counter-affidavits by February 26.

However, he said the claim of the two that they had not been afforded the right to preliminary investigation was not enough to drop the murder charges against them.
Alvarez, in the counter-affidavit she filed through her counsel, former prosecutor Cesar Beloria Sr., said she was included in the murder charge on the “mere basis” of a supplemental affidavit by Edward Baynosa, a confessed rebel, who claimed he was one of those ordered by the scores of accused to kill the Army officer.

Beloria also questioned the authority of prosecutor Marcelo H. Del Pilar, the officer-in-charge of the Cadiz City Prosecutor’s Office, who he said signed the original information filed before Muñez even after he had already resigned.

Tiu refuted this, saying Del Pilar was still in “active service” with the Department of Justice when he signed the information on July 15, 2011.

Tiu also denied the claim of Alvarez that she was not served a subpoena, presenting records that showed one had been issued May 22 last year.

“This is a positive development because this would allow Zarah and all the other accused to present their counter-affidavits before the city prosecutor,” Beloria, Sr. told Interaksyon.com.

At the same time, he said Tiu’s admission that the subpoena against his client had been served by Talisay City police proved she had been deprived of due process since Alvarez is a resident of Cadiz, not Talisay.

On the other hand, Rojo’s lawyer, Joel Cabalatungan, said the murder, robbery-in-band and arson his client is accused of committing should be consolidated into a single case since these were allegedly done “in furtherance of rebellion or a component of rebellion.”

The military and police claim Rojo, a lay worker of the Catholic church, is supposedly the Negros regional finance officer of the Communist Party of the Philippines, a charge refuted by priests and other church workers who have organized the Free Cheche Rojo Movement.

But Tiu argued that the “… the crime of murder in this case was absolutely unnecessary to commit rebellion although it was the natural consequence initiated by all the accused.”

She also pointed out that ”… just because accused Rojo and all the other accused in this case were suspected to be top-ranking (Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army) officials and members do not automatically imply that the crime of murder of (Polenzo) was committed in furtherance of a political end.”

Tiu claimed the “essential element” in rebellion which is “… public armed uprising against the government under Article 134 of the Revised Penal Code is lacking as there were no masses or multitude involving crowd action done in furtherance of a political end and even assuming that there was uprising, there is no showing that the purpose of the uprising is political, that is, to overthrow the duly constituted government in order to establish another form of government…”

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/55608/negros-church-worker-teacher-lose-bid-to-junk-murder-raps-but-get-order-for-new-probe