Gov’t seeks to clear ex-gov
of murder rap Says conviction of
Villarosa is invalid
BY EVANGELINE DE VERA
STATE lawyers, in a rare turnabout last
December, assailed the findings of Department of Justice
prosecutors that led to the conviction of former Occidental
Mindoro Gov. Jose Villarosa for the 1997 murders of Michael
Quintos, 31, a barangay captain, and his brother Paul, 27, whose
father former Rep. Ricardo Quintos is Villarosa’s political
rival.
Then Solicitor General Antonio Eduardo
Nachura said the prosecution failed to establish a conspiracy
when it based its evidence on the extrajudicial confession of
Eduardo Hermoso, one of the co-accused, which is inadmissible in
court.
Nachura now sits as associate justice of the
Supreme Court.
THE New York-based media watchdog Committee
to Protect Journalists yesterday slammed the arrest of an online
editor of Newsbreak magazine in connection with a P100 million
libel case filed by Ilocos Gov. Luis "Chavit" Singson.
"The authorities in the Philippines are using
criminal libel as a battering ram against press freedom," said
Joel Simon, CPJ executive director, said in a statement posted
at the CPJ website Wednesday.
"Government officials should not rush to a
prosecutor every time a journalist writes critically about those
in power. The charges against the Newsbreak editors should be
dropped," he added.
PRESIDENT Arroyo was embarrassed yesterday at
a Women’s Day celebration when she boasted of giving
microfinance to women to an audience of women government
employees who are not its beneficiaries.
Arroyo asked her audience – a throng of 8,000
women at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium – if any of them had benefited
from the microfinance program.
