THE Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office may have dismissed the parricide case against Pastor Leonardo Jastiva Sr., but the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) is not ready to give up on their case yet.

CCPO Director Patrocinio Comendador said they have the option to file a motion for reconsideration and show the prosecutor handling the investigation that the evidence they have will stand in court.

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“From our point of view, we see a need to thoroughly examine the contents of that cell phone before deciding on that,” he told reporters yesterday.

Comendador said their request to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has not yet been acted upon. The request was for a thorough examination of all text messages sent and received by Jastiva’s cellular phones.

No justice

The dismissal gives Pastor Jastiva another reason to celebrate during the regular church service today for followers of the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement.

But Jastiva won’t be having a victory party anytime soon.

“Nalipay unta ko kay nigawas ang kamatuoran pero naa’y kasubo kay wala gihapo’y hustisya ang pagkamatay sa akong asawa (I should be happy because the truth has come out but there is still grief because there is no justice yet for my wife),” Jastiva told Sun.Star Cebu in a phone interview last night.

Jastiva was named a suspect in the death of his wife Judith, who was kidnapped in the evening of Feb. 9, 2009 on P. Abellana St., Barangay Labangon, Cebu City.
Judith’s body was found on Feb. 18, 2009 in Sitio Cantipla I, Barangay Tabunan, Cebu City.

The Cebu City Police Office, which earlier assisted Jastiva in the quest to find his wife, charged Jastiva with parricide, using circumstantial evidence.

Assistant Cebu City Prosecutor Liceria Lofranco-Rabillas ruled, however, that the evidence presented by the police were insufficient to show probable cause that Jastiva killed his wife.

“Sabbath is always a special day for prayers for us, but it’s going be more special because of the acquittal of our pastor,” said Jasper Palabrica, 34, a layman of Negros Occidental.

Palabrica and other International Missionary Society (IMS) members learned of the complaint’s dismissal last Thursday evening.

He said, though, that the dismissal did not come as a surprise to them because they have been expecting that their pastor would be cleared of the charges.

Prayers

“Our prayers have been answered, and we thank the Lord for it,” said a female clerk, who was busy packing IMS religious leaflets for shipment.

Asked if the dismissal would be seen as a “black eye” for the CCPO, Comendador said it may be an advantage because they can still file the case again and wouldn’t hit a snag with double jeopardy.

“Win some, lose some. We have prosecuted successfully a lot of cases and then some have not reached the court,” he admitted.

He feels, though, that the prosecutor handling the case should have considered the pending results from the NTC.

He considers “one of the stumbling blocks” to their investigation the reluctance of Judith Jastiva’s family to pursue a case against the pastor.

Comendador also assured that they approached the case “objectively” and that they focused on Jastiva because the evidence they gathered pointed to him.

He said that if they find other evidence pointing to someone else, they would pursue that angle.

They had also hoped to trace the vehicle allegedly used in the abduction but they had no luck.

Comendador, though, said he could not blame the prosecutor handling the case, saying they had different ways of resolving cases.

“They have their own discretionary powers,” he said.

Doing job

Jastiva said he refused to let the complaint drag him down.

He traveled all over the country for seminars as a church leader.

He could file an administrative case against the authorities before the ombudsman or a civil suit for damages before the Cebu City Regional Trial Court.

But he said: “I have no plans as for now. There are just so many things on my mind. Besides, they were just doing their job.”

“Everybody makes mistakes.”

He would have to talk to his lawyers, Fritz Quiñanola and Agueda Monteclar, his family and relatives before he makes a decision.

Agueda accompanied Jastiva to the Marcelo Fernan Palace of Justice yesterday morning to get a copy of the resolution penned by Rabillas.

“They relied so much on the text messages, just mere suspicion and conjectures. There was no hard evidence,” Agueda told reporters, referring to the complaint against her client.

Police officers found that the messages that Jastiva reported to have come from the kidnappers were just sent from Jastiva’s other phone.

But the pastor said that if the authorities had only verified, they would see the messages were merely forwarded to his other phone, which his son used. There really were messages, he said, that came from a different number.

“While there may be strong reasons to suspect that the respondent had a hand in the killing of his wife, yet, under our law and existing jurisprudence, mere suspicion, no matter how strong, can never ripen into evidence,” read Rabillas’s eight-page resolution.

“Suspicion or accusation is not synonymous with guilt. Without corroborating or substantial evidence, any conclusion pointing to the respondent as the killer would merely be based on pure speculation or conjecture.”

In the long run, Jastiva said he wants to move to New Zealand.

He was elected as the president of the New Zealand Mission Field last year yet. But the trip was postponed because his eldest child got married and his wife was killed early this year.

Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on July 4, 2009.