OSG wants octogenarian tagged as NPA back in jail

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MANILA, Philippines — The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) is seeking to overturn a Court of Appeals (CA) decision that ordered the release of 81-year-old Prudencio Calubid Jr. from detention for being wrongly identified as a rebel leader—a move that rights group Karapatan denounced over the weekend.

In a 19-page motion for reconsideration dated June 30, government lawyers asked the appellate court to reconsider, reverse, and set aside its decision and enter a new one that would deny the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus granted to Calubid Jr.

The writ of habeas corpus is a legal remedy for a person illegally deprived of liberty and to relieve him if such restraint is illegal.

READ: CA frees man, 81, misidentified by PNP-CIDG as NPA leader

Misrepresented

The OSG said Calubid Jr.’s failure to challenge the legality of his arrest in 2024 at the earliest opportunity and his voluntary submission to the jurisdiction of the trial court when he underwent arraignment “cured” the alleged defect in his arrest.

Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay, however, said the OSG’s bid to bring back an octogenarian to prison was “utterly devoid of substantive issues,” saying it harps on technicalities and merely repeated the Philippine National Police’s false claims that it had conducted “extensive investigation and intelligence gathering” to verify Calubid Jr.’s identity.

In its ruling issued on June 27, the CA’s 16th Division ordered Calubid Jr. released after granting the habeas corpus petition filed by his daughter.

According to Karapatan, Calubid Jr. is a retired technician and former overseas Filipino worker, who was misrepresented by his captors as Prudencio Calubid, a consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) with a P7.8-million bounty on his head.

The NDFP consultant was abducted and forcibly disappeared in Camarines Sur with five others by suspected state agents on June 26, 2006.

The police mistook Calubid Jr. for their target, who had the same name but without the suffix “Junior.” /cb