THE Supreme Court yesterday deferred action
on the motion of the family of slain Kuratong Baleleng members
for the reopening of the multiple murder case against former
members of the defunct Presidential Anti-Crime Commission (PACC).
The case of Kuratong Baleleng implicated several former and
current police officers, including former PNP chief and now senator Panfilo
Lacson.
In a resolution promulgated last April 23, the court en banc
simply noted the second motion to resolve filed by intervenors Perfecto and
Myrna Abalora, parents of one of the 11 suspected members of the kidnapping
syndicate killed during the encounter in 1995. A "noted" resolution means the
tribunal sees no immediate need to resolve the case.
The SC in October 2003 already ruled with finality remanding
the case to the sala of Quezon City regional trial court Judge Ma. Theresa Yadao
and directing the said court to reopen the case filed against Lacson, who was
then head of the PACC, and 33 other former and current police officials, among
them, Chief Superintendents Jewel Canson, Romeo Acop, Francisco Zubia Jr., Jose
Erwin Villacorte and Gil Meneses; Senior Inspectors Rolando Anduyan, Joselito
Esquivel, Ricardo Dandan and Ceasar Tannagan; Senior Superintendents Michael Ray
Aquino, Cezar O. Mancao II and Zorobabel Laureles; Superintendents Glenn Dumlao
and Almario Hilario; and SPO4 Vicente P. Arnado.
In 2004, Yadao dismissed the criminal charges against Lacson
and the other respondents, saying the two-year prescription period within which
the case should have been filed had already lapsed.
The Department of Justice, however, sought to revive the case
due to new evidence based on the testimony of a set of new witnesses, among them
policemen who confirmed the alleged rubout.
The trial court however did not grant the motion to revive
the case, saying there was nothing new in the submission that would warrant a
reversal of the ruling. This prompted the government to take the case to the SC,
asking the high tribunal to nullify Yadao’s ruling on the two-year prescriptive
period under the Rules of Court.
Complainants claimed the Revised Penal Code which set a 10-year prescriptive
period for murder should have been applied in the case. – Evangeline C. de
Vera
