Drilon wants DOJ Usec probed for downgrading Supt. Marcos case

Supt.Marvin Marcos. FILE PHOTO

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Monday urged the Office of the Ombudsman to investigate Justice Undersecretary Reynante Orceo for downgrading the charges against Supt. Marvin Marcos and his men implicated in last year’s killing of Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa.

“It is very clear that officials led by Usec. Orceo colluded in order for the charges against Marcos and his men to be downgraded from murder to homicide, so that they could post bail and be freed,” Drilon said in a statement.

Orceo earlier claimed that he acted on his own when he downgraded the charges against Marcos and his men from murder to homicide, and without the knowledge of Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II.

“The secretary (Aguirre) doesn’t have any hand in the draft of this resolution. I personally made it. The Justice Secretary did not intervene,” he said in a Senate hearing last week.

This order, Drilon said, was made in “manifest partiality, evident bad faith and inexcusable negligence.”

In the Senate inquiry last year on the killing of Espinosa, senators found that the killing was “premeditated and with abuse of authority,” referring to the involved police operatives.

“I would ask the committees handling this case that the Senate stands by its finding that Mayor Espinosa was murdered and that we must recommend the filing of appropriate criminal and administrative charges against Orceo and whoever colluded with him,” the former justice secretary said.

Orceo violated Section 3(e) of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act (Republic Act 3019), Drilon said, which states that any government official or employee can be charged for “causing any undue injury to any party, including the Government in the discharge of his official administrative or judicial functions through manifest partiality, evident bad faith or gross inexcusable negligence.”

The minority leader also lamented the “low faith” of the people in the government’s justice system.

“His (Orceo) action caused undue injury to the republic and to our justice system. What they did is a mockery of our justice system,” he added.- Winona Sadia, trainee