Justice slow as Ati leader’s slay marks 4th year

BORACAY ISLAND — Evangeline Tamboon was all set to attend a court hearing on Feb. 22 on the case for the murder of Dexter Condez, leader of the Ati tribe on Boracay Island.

The hearing would have also coincided with Condez’s fourth death anniversary.

But Tamboon was disappointed again after the hearing was reset to May 25.

“We hardly have hearings and the ones that are set are usually postponed,” said Tamboon, council member of the Boracay Ati Tribal Organization (Bato).

The last hearing was held in July last year. In the last three years, only seven hearings were held.

“It’s disappointing and we are losing hope that Dexter will find justice,” she said.

Condez, Bato spokesperson, was shot by a lone gunman on Feb. 22, 2013, on his way home to the village of Manoc-Manoc after attending a meeting.

Police had linked his killing to disputes over a 2.1-hectare beach front property that was awarded to the tribe by the government in 2011 through a certificate of ancestral domain title issued by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples.

Daniel Celestino, then security guard of the Crown Regency Boracay Resorts hotel chain, had been detained in March 2014 at the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology facility in the capital town of Kalibo for the killing of Condez. Celestino had denied involvement in the killing.

Tamboon said delays in the case were partly due to the sheer number of cases clogging the Kalibo Regional Trial Court.