Lawyers of the victims in the June 18 fraternity-related violence at the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman campus have asked a Quezon City court to issue a hold departure order (HDO) against the five accused in the case.
The urgent ex parte motion was filed on Wednesday in the sala of Quezon City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 80 judge Charito Gonzales, who is hearing the frustrated murder and illegal possession of ammunition cases against students Cheran Cabrito, Elias Miles Villanueva, Rudolf Gene Karlo Neral, Rannie Mercado and Sean Rodriguez, reportedly Upsilon Sigma Phi fraternity members.
Last June 18, a group of masked men wielding lead pipes beat up UP students and Alpha Sigma fraternity members Jesus Blas Vitangcol and Joevie de la Cruz at the campus, before fleeing aboard a blue Mazda.
Alerted to the assault on their fraternity brothers, Ernesto Luis Pangalangan and Mario Andrefanio Santos II arrived at the area an hour later, only for Pangalangan’s car to end up thrashed by masked men carrying lead pipes who fled using a silver Peugeot van.
The UP Diliman police, who joined the car chase after the second attack, later apprehended Cabrito and the four other suspects in the Peugeot van along Himlayan Road at the corner of Tandang Sora Avenue.
“We’re asking the court to issue a hold departure order against all of the accused to prevent them from leaving the country and [evading] the processes of the court,” said Marcelino Arias Jr., one of the lawyers representing the victims.
In a hearing on Thursday, Gonzales ordered the motion submitted for resolution.
“Considering the gravity of the crime that they are being accused of, it is not remote that someone will try to flee,” said another private prosecution lawyer, Reynold S. Munsayac.
“They have fraternity brothers that are well-connected. We cannot discount the fact that they may, if they want to, evade the ends of justice,” Arias added.
The hearing was originally meant to hear the omnibus motion for preliminary investigation filed by the accused’s camp. Earlier, defense lawyer Alex Avisado told reporters his clients were “falsely implicated” and that evidence had been “planted” by responding campus policemen. Avisado said Cabrito’s group had nothing to do with the attack on Vitangcol because it involved another car.
Gonzales only ordered the prosecution lawyers to file their comment to the omnibus motion within five days, before it can be submitted for resolution.