Sonny O offers to bail out farmers

With bail set at P606,000 for 39 protestors, mostly farmers, who were arrested in Monday’s clash with policemen in Hacienda Gantuangco, who can cough up the money for their release?

Lawyers yesterday asked the court to reduce the amount of bail for the detainees’ temporary liberty by almost half or P273,000.

The 36 farmers and three college students are banking on help from former senator John Henry “Sonny” Osmeña who pledged to post bail for them.

“Their bail bond is ready,” said lawyer Ian Vincent Manticajon.

The aid is “a humanitarian gesture,” said Arman Perez, Bayan Muna partylist Cebu secretary general.

Perez said the farmers sought the help of Osmeña, who recently declared his interest in seeking the congressional seat in Cebu’s 3rd district, a position he used to hold. Aloguinsan town belongs to the 3rd district under Rep. Pablo John Garcia.

The 140-hectare hacienda is the bone of contention between farmers as beneficiaries of land reform and heirs of the Gantuangco clan, who bought the property in the 1920s.

“Most of those who were arrested are senior citizens. They know Sonny that much. Anytime (today, Sept. 2), they will be free,” Perez said.

Manticajon yesterday filed a motion to reduce bail in the sala of Regional Trial Court Judge Hermes Montero of Branch 57 in Toledo City.

The demonstrators were charged with direct asssault with bail ranging from P6,000 to P12,000 per detainee.

On charges of “resistance and disobedience of persons in authority,” Manticajon said each accused should be made to pay P1,000 instead of P2,000.

If the motion is granted, the 39 accused need to pay at total of P273,000. Otherwise, they have to post bail in the amount of P606,000.

“There is no risk of flight on the part of the accused and there really was no probable cause against them,” Manticajon told Cebu Daily News.

Manticajon said they will file a writ of amparo in court after the accused are released. The writ is a court order to protect a person’s constitutional rights.

Provincial Police Director Patrocinio Comendador said “less than 100” and not 200 policemen were sent to Aloguinsan to disperse a human barricade of about 150 farmers and militant allies last Monday. He denied the police deployment was an “overkill.” Comendador said protestors crowded the hacienda before a sherriff with a court order arrived with a demoiltion crew and police to fence the area.

“Some of our police officers got hit by Indian pana. We may have preempted these (firearms) because we deployed ahead near the houses where firearms were believed to be kept,” Comendador said.

“They fabricate stories to make us look bad and to connect it to something that did not happen,” he said.