MANILA, Philippines -- The Supreme Court has ordered the Court of Appeals to investigate the alleged torture by authorities of a Protestant pastor accused of murder.

The high court en banc ordered the appeals court to hear the petition for certiorari, or review, of Pastor Berlin Guerrero of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP), former Senate president Jovito Salonga and other religious leaders.

"In view of the seriousness of the allegations of the violations of the liberty and dignity of a citizen who is said to be under detention, and in order that this case be acted upon with dispatch, the Court, instead of dismissing this petition outright, hereby resolves to remand the case to the Court of Appeals," the high court said.

Guerrero is detained at the Cavite provincial jail in Trece Martirez. He was arrested by virtue of an outstanding 1992 alias warrant for the death of a certain Noli Yatco.

The UCCP pastor and his co-petitioners told the high court that the Bacoor, Cavite regional trial court had ignored his claim of torture by police.

The petitioners added that the arrest warrant against Guerrero was baseless because the judge failed to conduct the required personal examination of complainant Ederlinda Yatco and Fernando Hinto, in violation of the pastor's right to due process.

Aside from Salonga, other petitioners include UCCP general secretary Eliezer Pascua; Ecumenical Bishops Forum co-chair Bishops Deogracias Iñiguez and Solito Toquero; National Council of Churches in the Philippines general secretary Sharon Duremdes; and Union Theological Seminary president Romeo Del Rosario.

Guerrero was allegedly abducted by state security agents May 27 last year after attending the anniversary celebration of the UCCP church in Biñan, Laguna. He said he was blindfolded, interrogated and tortured by his abductors, who covered his head with a plastic bag, continually depriving him of oxygen, and hitting him with a plastic bottle of water to minimize bruising.

He said it took several days before he learned that his torturers were the policemen who accused him of killing Yatco.