THE Cebu Provincial Prosecutor’s Office has inhibited from handling all three criminal complaints the two political rivals in the fourth district filed in relation to the May 10 elections.
Provincial Prosecutor Jane Petralba said she forwarded to the Office of the Regional State Prosecutor a motion the lawyers of Benhur Salimbangon filed that asked her office not to handle the case.
This way, Regional State Prosecutor Fernando Gubalane will have a free hand to choose which office will handle the cases, said Petralba.
The regional prosecutor has yet to act on the motion.
The provincial prose-cutor’s office received recently a copy of the ex-parte motion requesting Petralba and the entire Cebu Provincial Prose-cutor’s Office to “voluntarily inhibit in actively resolving” the criminal complaints for arbitrary detention, usurpation of authority and usurpation of official functions.
Also included is the usurpation of authority case that Celestino Martinez III filed against Salimbangon before the elections.
He accused Salimbangon of assuming office as Cebu’s fourth district representative, despite the ruling of the Supreme Court that declared him (Martinez) the winner of the May 2007 election, after the recount.
Salimbagon fired back. He recently filed criminal complaints for arbitrary detention and grave coercion against reelected Bogo City Mayor Celestino “Junie” Martinez Jr., Vice Mayor Santiago Sevilla, defeated congressional candidate Tining Marti-nez, former representative Clavel Asas-Martinez, lawyers Jose Carlo Martinez and Ahmad Clay Escolar and several unidentified persons.
These complaints stemmed from a roadblock on the evening of May 10 in Bogo City.
In an earlier interview, Petralba expressed willingness to inhibit from handling the cases “to maintain the integrity of my office.”
Unlike in previous instances where she voluntarily inhibited from handling the case, Petralba said she did not inhibit automatically because Salimbangon and the Martinezes were both her clients when the two used to belong to the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino party.
According to Salimbangon’s lawyers, it’s public knowledge in the legal community that prior to Petralba’s appointment as provincial prosecutor, she handled cases for the Martinezes.
Because of the attorney-client relationship between Petralba and the Martinezes, the lawyers said it’s inevitable that “a cloud of doubt will always hover above any action, resolution/finding issued and approved by the provincial prosecutor.”