SC exec hits DOJ ruling: If judge can’t get justice, then who can?

Supreme Court administrator Midas Marquez on Thursday deplored that a year after the murder of a distinguished Negros Occidental judge, “the masterminds have not been brought to justice and remain scot-free.”

Judge Henry Arles of the Kabankalan regional trial court was gunned down on his way home from work on April 24 last year.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) recommended the filing of murder charges against seven men but dismissed the murder complaint against three local officials, Negros Occidental Vice Gov. Genaro Alvarez Jr., Ilog Mayor John Paul Alvarez and Vice Mayor Jerry Tabujara “for insufficiency of evidence.”

The DOJ resolution was issued last November but released only last week.

“If a highly reputed and distinguished judge cannot get justice from the system, then who can?” said Marquez in a statement.

He said Arles was a Judicial Excellence Awardee of the Supreme Court and a recipient of numerous awards in his community—Christine O. Avendaño