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Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Morality rap v. Castro junked; complainant’s mouth ‘sealed’
By Karlon N. Rama
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
Cherr Basalo-Augusto’s ghost haunts Mary Ann Castro no more. The anti-graft office, in a decision prepared by Ombudsman Director Virginia Santiago, has dismissed Augusto’s immorality complaint against the assistant Cebu City prosecutor.
The complaint, which was later upgraded into a formal administrative complaint, had been hanging over the prosecutor’s head for almost three years, until the decision that was approved last July 29 yet.
“The complainant Cherry Basalo-Augusto’s mouth is sealed with death,” the decision read. “She cannot anymore prove her case.”
Augusto was slain in October 2002, barely two months after she filed the immorality case against the prosecutor.
But did Castro, who only recently returned to work after a three-month suspension but got into trouble again for filching a photo from a court docket (Separate story, A6), commit an immoral act?
“The overriding consideration is not whether this office doubts the innocence of the respondent but whether it entertains doubts as to her guilt, as her identity was (with Augusto’s death) not duly established,” the ruling said.
Complaint
The ombudsman’s immorality investigation began after Cherry filed a complaint, narrating how she caught Castro and her husband Zandro together inside the Moonlight Motel in Mandaue City on Aug. 11, 2002.
But Cherry was shot in the head by a policeman who was reportedly her lover on Oct. 3, 2002.
“In administrative proceedings, the quantum of proof necessary for a finding of guilt is substantial evidence,” the anti-graft office had said.
But it is the complainant who is burdened to present that substantial evidence. With Cherry dead, her testimony and evidence also went to the grave, said the anti-graft office’s six-page administrative decision released yesterday.
“None of her witnesses can also do so (identify Castro as the other woman at the Moonlight Motel). The claim of one Arnel Basalo that he had seen respondent Castro with Zandro in Ormoc City in some other dates cannot be considered in this case as this does not pertain to the incident in question,” the office ruled.
In her affidavit, Cherry narrated how she, some friends and members of the Mandaue City Special Weapons and Tactics (Swat) team caught Castro inside the Moonlight Motel with Cherry’s husband.
Cherry said she had already followed Zandro a few days before the motel incident after she learned that he was going out with another woman.
She later identified the woman as Castro and that this was why she got the Swat team to accompany her to the motel.
Cherry said Castro tried to hide her identity by telling the cops she was Cynthia Fernandez and by refusing to go with them to the police station.
Castro submitted her counter-affidavit to the charges and said she was in Ormoc City on the night in question.
She also secured the affidavit of one of Cherry’s witnesses, taxi driver Hector Castroverde.
Castroverde, in the affidavit endorsed by Cherry, had identified Castro as the woman in the room with Zandro.
Forced
But in the affidavit Castro submitted, Castro-verde said he was merely forced into issuing the statement by Edward Ligas, Cherry’s friend.
The Mandaue City Swat policemen, when summoned to one of the subsequent hearings called to treat the complaint, also said they never got a clear look at the woman.
The investigation on her immorality and grave misconduct complaint stopped when Castro, in January 2003, filed a petition for certiorari and prohibition before the Court of Appeals (CA), which issued a restraining order in April that year.
She wanted the investigation stopped, citing how Cherry’s death makes null all the allegations hurled against her. A continuance of the investigation would mean a violation of her constitutional right to face her accuser.
The court reversed its position in a resolution dated Aug. 13, 2004.
“Disciplinary actions against public officers and employees do not involve purely private or personal matters. They are impressed with public interest by virtue of the public trust character of a public office,” the CA ruling read.
Associate Justice Danilo Pine penned the 10-page ruling dismissing Castro’s petition for certiorari and the subsequent resolution denying her motion for reconsideration. A Cebuano appellate court associate justice, Renato Dacudao, together with Cancio Garica, then CA presiding justice and now associate justice of the Supreme Court, agreed with both.
But the CA ruling treated only the anti-graft office’s authority to continue with its investigation despite the death of the complainant.
It did not change the rules on how evidence is to be weighed.
“The complainant must prove that the offense charged was committed and that the respondent was precisely the perpetrator of the crime. It is required that the identity of the respondent as the perpetrator must be duly established and that every circumstance favoring her innocence be taken into account,” Santiago said in the ruling.
(August 16, 2005 issue)
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