Slain Albuera, Leyte Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/ GRIG MONTEGRANDE)
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II may again find himself on the spot.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has flip-flopped on its earlier decision recommending the indictment for murder of 19 policemen in connection with the controversial killing of Albuera, Leyte, Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. inside his prison cell last year.
Upon Aguirre’s authorization, Justice Undersecretary Reynante Orceo granted the petition for review filed by Supt. Marvin Marcos and his subordinates and downgraded the criminal case to homicide, a lighter and bailable offense.
The justice secretary came under fire after he tagged opposition Senators Bam Aquino and Antonio Trillanes IV in the siege of Marawi City, an accusation he later took back.
Marcos was sacked as chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in Eastern Visayas after he and his men swooped down on Baybay Subprovincial Jail and killed the mayor and fellow inmate Raul Yap on the night of Nov. 5, 2016.
Espinosa is the father of suspected drug lord Kerwin Espinosa, who claimed Marcos and several other CIDG officials had been receiving protection money from him.
Curiously, President Duterte had publicly defended the actions of Marcos and his men. He had said he would promote them and pardon them if they would plead guilty to the crime.
A Senate committee investigation headed by Sen. Panfilo Lacson supported the findings of the National Bureau of Investigation that Espinosa’s killing was premeditated.
Lacson on Thursday expressed disappointment at the downgrade. “I am against it. The facts were very clear,” he told reporters.
In a May 29 resolution, a copy of which was released to the media by Aguirre’s office on Thursday, Orceo said the DOJ “cannot speculate or even assume that there was evident premeditation as nothing in the records could prove the same.”
“With the absence of any evidence, it was gravely erroneous for the panel (of prosecutors) to conclude that ‘the records will show that (the) respondents craftily executed the killings under the pretense of implementing a search warrant,’” Orceo said.
“In other words, complainants’ version that there was a rubout as the victims were unarmed cannot be given much weight as both of them were armed and fired their guns when the respondents implemented the two search warrants,” he added.
The resolution prompted the Leyte provincial prosecutor, Ma. Arlene Hunamayor-Cordovez, to file a motion in Baybay Regional Trial Court Branch 14 seeking the lowering of the charge.
In a four-page motion dated June 6, Cordovez urged the court to “amend the information for murder … and downgrade it to homicide.”
In reversing the March 6 resolution of the DOJ, Orceo said there was “no sufficient basis for the indictment of herein respondents for murder.”
“Proof of conspiracy does not imply the existence of evident premeditation. The rule is that evident premeditation may not be taken into account where, as here, conspiracy is not based on direct proof, but inferred from the acts of the accused in the perpetration of crime,” he ruled. —WITH A REPORT FROM CHRISTINE O. AVENDAÑO