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Thursday, May 27, 2004
They blame each other
By Karlon N. Rama
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
WITH separate investigations being sought against them, Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Ildefonso Suerte and Assistant Regional State Prosecutor Vicente Mañalac are beginning to blame each other for the Cedrick Devinadera mess.
Judge Suerte, interviewed in Barili last Tuesday, said he was “made to believe” that the murder case against Devinadera was “independent and distinct” from the parricide case against Ruben Ecleo Jr.
Suerte convicted Devinadera last May 7 of being an accessory to the murder of Ecleo’s wife, Alona.
Mañalac, meanwhile, said he resolved to upgrade into a formal case the original complaint against Devinadera, expecting that Suerte, having “public knowledge” of the Ecleo case, would coordinate with the court where the Ecleo case was pending, instead of resolving it on his own.
“My task was to determine probable cause and, because Devinadera was not presented during the preliminary investigation, I had to resolve it based on the information submitted by the complainant,” Mañalac said.
“When a case reaches the court, a wall of Jericho is erected around it and the judge is free to subject the accused and the complainant to grueling determination. It is now up to the judge,” he said. He cited Section 3 (d) of the Rules of Court and the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Crespo vs. Mogul case.
Prudence, please
Section 3 (d) of the Rules of Court sets the preliminary investigation procedures when the respondent doesn’t appear for clarificatory hearing. The Crespo vs. Mogul ruling states that the justice department loses jurisdiction over a case once it gets filed before a trial court.
Lawyer Democrito Barcenas, Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) Cebu City Chapter president, criticized Mañalac in a separate interview, adding that the recently appointed assistant regional state prosecutor “cannot feign ignorance” over what he did and that he “should have acted with prudence.”
The IBP Cebu City Chapter has asked the Department of Justice and the Supreme Court to investigate both Mañalac and Suerte for the controversy.
Judge Suerte said that with Devinadera’s confession and the plea of guilty as an accessory to murder, he had no choice but to convict. He meted a penalty of imprisonment for four years and two months to a maximum of eight years and one day.
He maintained that the prosecutors, during Devinadera’s arraignment last April 23, didn’t object to the proceeding nor present any notice on the existence of a similar case filed somewhere else.
Did he know?
Sun.Star Cebu secured a copy of the transcript of stenographic notes made during the arraignment last April 23 and the promulgation last May 7. Based on the records, Devinadera, represented by lawyer Luis Salazar, was willing to plead guilty to homicide and not murder, which was quickly resolved.
Based on the same transcript, there is no sign that Suerte tried to verify if the Devinadera case was related to the Ecleo proceedings.
Also, based on the transcript, Acting Provincial Prosecutor Napoleon Alburo, whom Suerte blames for having misled the court, gave way to lawyer Neil Nuñez, the private prosecutor.
Sun.Star sought Alburo’s comment on Suerte’s allegations but he declined.
Judicial notice notwithstanding, Mañalac hinted that Suerte cannot say he didn’t know about the Ecleo case, the subject of so many newspaper, radio and television news reports.
“It is presumable that the judge knows about it. It is within the ordinary course of human conduct that the judge read newspapers and knew about the case,” he maintained.
Personal knowledge
He denied, however, that the same reasoning applies to why he, despite knowing about the parricide case, recommended the filing of the case against Devinadera.
He could have referred the matter to the Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor so that it could either dismiss the Devinadera complaint outright or incorporate it with the parricide case against Ecleo.
While Mañalac admits that he is the provincial prosecutor assigned to RTC Branch 18, where the Ecleo case is being heard, he argued that he had no “personal knowledge” that such case existed because he was never part of its hearings.
Other prosecutors, all refusing to be identified, do not agree with Mañalac. He said the prosecutor should have made arrangements for the referral of the case to the Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor, where it could either be dismissed or included in the main case.
They refused to comment further, adding that the matter is best left to justice department officials to resolve.
(May 27, 2004 issue)
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