PROSECUTORS from the city and province of Cebu as well as staff members bade goodbye to Assistant City Prosecutor Patrick Ian Osorio during a mass last night. They also pledged to gather financial aid for his family.

The lack of leads in the investigation by the police and the justice department’s National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) had many seeking updates for the benefit of the family and out of concern over their own safety as well.

Serious

“We should be more serious about security now,” Assistant Provincial Prosecutor Marvin de la Peña said.

Regional State Prosecutor Fernando Gubalane revealed that field prosecutors from Siquijor, Bohol and Oriental Negros have committed to give at least P1,000 each to Osorio’s family.

They also commit to do this in case another attack against one of their own happens.

Gubalane plans to make this a project of his office.

“Hopefully, this will be the first and the last,” Gubalane said.

He explained the collections were not imposed on the prosecutors and was their idea. There are 125 prosecutors in the region.

Solved

In Cebu City alone, all 39 prosecutors have already given their share. Assistant Cebu City Prosecutor Rhodna Bacatan collected the pledges, which will be given to Julia Osorio, Patrick’s widow. The Osorio couple has four boys and one more baby on the way.

“We are hoping that this case will be solved soon,” Assistant City Prosecutor Rogelio del Prado Jr. said. Del Prado was Osorio’s partner prosecutor at the 24th branch of the Regional Trial Court (RTC).

Lawyer Lisa Osorio, Patrick’s sister-in-law, said the prosecutor’s remains will be brought to his parents’ house in Mambaling today and then to their hometown in Dalaguete on Sunday.

Osorio’s four children were at the Sacred Heart Parish chapel during the mass last night.

“They still don’t understand what all this means but the eldest knows and he is asking why his father was taken from them this early,” Lisa said.

“Live life to the fullest,” Fr. Jerome Cayetano of the Society of the Divine Word said in his homily. “Death,” after all, is “part of living.”

So many people, including private practitioners, attended the mass to pay their final respects. The chapel was so full of people that seats had to be set up on the driveway and beyond.

Speculation

There is speculation that Osorio was “sold”, meaning somebody went behind his back and assured the respondents of a particular complaint he was handling that the charge against them would be dropped, for a sum.

And when Osorio, after reviewing the evidence and not even remotely aware of the deal, recommended an indictment, the party or parties in question directed their ire at the prosecutor and went after him.

“We hear of this happening many times,” one prosecutor said.

“That is why I’m very wary of who I talk to at the office. They smile, put their arms around you and start talking in hushed tones over nothing in particular. In the end, it is just some ruse to make somebody else believe that a deal is being struck,” another prosecutor added.

NBI 7 Director Medardo de Lemos refused to comment, saying there is so far no evidence to suggest that this was the case.

He said, however, that NBI investigators are not only going through the cases Osorio prosecuted before RTC Branch 24 but also those complaints assigned to him for inquest or preliminary investigation.

The focus is currently on incidents Osorio handled in 2008. And if nothing comes out, de Lemos said, they will go as far back as cases and complaints assigned to Osorio during the last three years.

NBI investigators questioned two people yesterday. De Lemos did not reveal what information was obtained.

Members of the Osorio family were also seen at the NBI headquarters talking to Executive Officer Ernesto Macabare, a lawyer, last Thursday.

On the need to give updates, de Lemos said this cannot be done if it puts the investigation in jeopardy.

He welcomed, though, Police Regional Director Ronald Roderos’ creation of a task force and said he will share whatever leads and information NBI investigators can come up with.

The NBI has taken cognizance of the investigation upon orders from higher headquarters. Both the NBI and the National Prosecution Service, including the Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor, are attached agencies of the Department of Justice. (KNR/JGA)

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(January 10, 2009 issue)
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