The 12 policemen who ambushed and killed 13 men in Atimonan, Quezon province, in what is now called the “Atimonan massacre” have been granted bail by Judge Liwliwa Hidalgo Bucu of the Manila Regional Trial Court.
One wonders how the judge arrived at that ruling that freed the accused.
Murder is a nonbailable offense.
Judge Bucu said government prosecutors failed to “prove that the evidence of guilt of the accused…is strong.”
The Judicial and Bar Council—which screens nominees for the lower courts, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court—should be disbanded for choosing judges like Bucu who don’t know how to appreciate strong evidence of multiple murders.
When you killed a person in ambush, you committed murder because the killing had been done with treachery and planned.
And when you shot that person that you ambushed in the head while he lay bloodied and helpless on the ground, you committed murder since the guy could no longer fight back.
All the 12 victims were shot in the head.
What evidence was lacking in the murder of the 13 victims, one of whom was the rival of the sister of Supt. Hansel Marantan in the “jueteng” operations?
Marantan was the head of the police team that ambushed the victims.
Marantan was not motivated by the enforcement of the law but by greed, as he wanted his sister to become the sole jueteng lord in her area of operation.
Any first year law student would know what I, a nonlawyer, am talking about.
The sacking of Peter Laviña as chief of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) is a clear message that President Digong will not spare anyone, even his close advisers, in his campaign to rid his government of corrupt officials.
Laviña was Mano Digong’s spokesperson during the election campaign.
“Even a whiff, or a whisper, of corruption and you’re out,” said the President referring to Laviña’s dismissal.
Some corrupt officials must be quaking in their boots because they know they’re next in line.
Police confiscated many firearms inside an armory within a compound owned by the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) in Quezon City, once considered “holy ground” by the government.
The INC’s equivalent to the Catholic Church’s Vatican has been “violated” when police raided the compound and arrested two siblings of INC Chief Minister Eduardo Manalo and 30 others.
By the way, why does the INC, which teaches love, maintain a large armory and a private army?
The executions of drug suspects make President Digong liable for “crimes against humanity,” according to the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The HRW has been repeating the warning over and over again it has become irritating to the ears.
By the way, where was the HRW when the US government was torturing suspected Arab terrorists at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba?