The private prosecutors in the 1986 Olalia-Alay-ay double murder case yesterday said they would appeal an Antipolo City court’s dismissal of the charges against a former Philippine Air Force (PAF) officer accused of being one of those who ordered the killings as a prelude to a right-wing military coup against then President Corazon Aquino.
Former PAF Lt. Col. Eduardo “Red” Kapunan was cleared after Antipolo Regional Trial Court Judge Marie Claire Mabutas-Sordan of Branch 97 granted the demurrer to evidence filed by his lawyers.
A demurrer to evidence is in effect a motion to dismiss filed by the accused after the prosecution finishes its presentation of evidence. It is anchored on the ground that the evidence presented was insufficient.
Rolando Olalia, founding chair of the leftist labor group Kilusang Mayo Uno, and his aide, Leonor Alay-ay, were abducted and found dead in Antipolo in November 1986.
Olalia’s nephew, lawyer Edre Olalia, was one of the private prosecutors in the case.
Describing the judge’s decision as “distressing and frustrating,” he said the victims’ families will file a motion for reconsideration within 15 days.
“The small fry take the fall, as always. The message is clear—lowly soldiers should not follow illegal orders from superiors because they will walk free and you will take the fall,” Edre Olalia, secretary general of the National Union of People’s Lawyers, said in a text message.
He pointed out that Kapunan’s coaccused—Sergeants Desiderio Perez, Dennis Jabatan and Fernando Casanova—remained behind bars. In 2013, the court allowed Kapunan to post a P400,000 bond, but denied Perez’s and Jabatan’s bail petitions.
The slain labor leader’s family, through his son, Rolando Rico Olalia, also a lawyer, denounced Kapunan’s virtual exoneration.
“The grief of our family is overwhelming… we never expected this time it would the court that would be killing them by denying them the justice we have been longing for for the past 30 years,” said a statement issued by the Olalia family.
“It’s hard to accept that an accused who was one of those who ordered the killing of my father is being set free while the soldiers he ordered are the ones in jail. My mother is old and her only wish is that we get justice for the merciless killing of my father and Ka Leonor. As with the previous presidents, we are appealing to President-elect Rodrigo Duterte to give them justice,” the statement said.