Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Prosecutor drops case v. Cebu's richest mayor
THE Office of the Regional State Prosecutor has dropped the criminal complaint against a Cebu town mayor who allegedly lied about his citizenship when he ran for the post last year.
State Prosecutor Graeme June Elmido found no probable cause against Ronda Mayor Esteban Sia in the complaint for perjury and violations of the Omnibus Election Code filed by his vice mayor – Mariano Blanco.
Elmido instead warned against the effects of “unwarranted and vexatious prosecution.”
“The integrity of a democratic society is corrupted if a person is carelessly tried where on the very face of the record no evidence linking him to the alleged crime exists,” Elmido said.
Blanco filed the complaint citing the Oct. 13, 2006 application for registration as voter that Sia filed with the Election Registration board of the municipality.
The document made Sia, widely believed to be the richest sitting mayor in the entire province by virtue of his statement of assets and liabilities to the Office of the Ombudsman, qualified to vote and be voted on.
Application
Blanco said that Sia committed perjury when he filed the application and alleged that the entries there “appear to be inconsistent with the actual truth.”
He said Sia, prior to the application, lived in the United States and had stayed there for quite a long time as a citizen.
Blanco said Sia only “reacquired” his citizenship on Jan. 22, 2007, four months and a few days before the election that was held on May 11, 2007.
However, Blanco said, Sia wrote “Dual Fil” in his application, thereby misrepresenting that he enjoyed dual Filipino-American citizenship. He then declared, as his residence, “Barangay Poblacion, Ronda, Cebu.”
Blanco said the declaration is thus false and constitutes perjury. It also violates the Omnibus Election Code.
Sia, for his part, admitted writing “Dual Fil” and declaring Poblacion as his residence in the application.
This he said, however, was made in good faith because he “heard that former Filipinos, who are native born in the Philippines, were allowed to vote.”
And when he finally decided to run for mayor, he went to the Philippine consular office in Los Angeles, California, took his Oath of Allegiance to the Philippines and executed a sworn statement renouncing his foreign citizenship.
Defendant
Sia asked that the Office of the Regional State Prosecutor hold action on his case in abeyance, adding that the subject of the complaint is also contained in a petition for quo warranto filed against him in another venue.
“There are two essential elements of perjury (1) the statement made by the defendant must be proven to be false and (2) it must be proven that the defendant did not believe those statements to be true,” Elmido said in the ruling.
And in the case of Sia, there appears to be no evidence to indicate that Sia didn’t really know that he didn’t have dual citizenship when he wrote in the form. (KNR)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (April 31, 2008 issue)
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