ONCE she pleaded in an interview, “I wish media would leave me alone.” --From “Leaving Mary Ann Alone,” News Sense, SunStar, Aug. 25, 2006
No way Mary Ann Castro, shot dead in an ambush in her car not far from I.T. Park in Cebu City last Jan. 17, could be left alone. At the time she said years ago that she wanted media to shift the news spotlight from her, the stories about Mary Ann concerned alleged adultery, involvement in a love triangle that ended in a man’s murder, a string of administrative complaints that resulted in her suspension three times, cases of questionable behavior and controversial career moves.
She wanted to be a judge, which drew a lot of criticisms.
Why not? I wrote then. At least litigants, lawyers and the usual kibitzers wouldn’t be bored to death or sleep, whichever comes first.
A prosecutor, Mary Ann was assigned for some time to the local office of the Bureau of Immigration (BI) where they thought she could do no wrong. That brought peace among the prosecutors but stirred a hornet’s nest at the BI by allegedly meddling in its affairs. Back she went to the prosecutor’s office.
Color, noise
A few of my past columns, then leashed to single-column space where only 1,700 characters of text could fit, may give one a glimpse of the color and noise from Mary Ann:
• “MARY ANN’S TONGUE,” Feb. 18, 2005: Testifying against a car driver in a traffic accident, Mary Ann stuck out her tongue at opposing lawyer Hector Fernandez. Judge Rosabella Tormis said Mary Ann’s conduct was “unbecoming of an officer of the court.”
“But, Judge Tormis,” I wrote,” consider Mary Ann’s possibilities as a judge, a job the fiscal has applied for. As judge, Mary Ann can rule by sticking her tongue out, instead of saying anything. Objection sustained? Tongue going up. Overruled? Tongue lowered and staying there. Angry judge? Tongue wagging like crazy.”
• ‘MARY ANN’S SKIRT,” Nov. 10, 2004: In a complaint filed by Mary Ann against businessman Nanak Donsaint Yu and lawyer Vicente Fernandez, she resented being called “termagant fish vendor,” “insidious and machinating opponent,” and “openly peddling her flesh,” by, among other ways, wearing short skirts.
If Mary Ann is a married woman (she was not at the time), I wrote, “peddling flesh” could be defamatory. “Last time I heard, she has an annulled union. Yu and Fernandez can raise the sexist (but not libelous) line that most ‘free women’ in a sense peddle flesh for marriage or sexual liaison.”
• “MARY ANN AS SCORNED WOMAN,” March 9, 2016: The prosecutor, with some Talisay City cops, visited the detention cell at Camp Sergio Osmeña in Cebu City where the live-in partner of Mary Ann’s estranged husband Greco Sanchez was detained. Mary Ann wanted the woman transferred to the Talisay jail and in the altercation she allegedly broke the jail lock and bit a cop in the arm.
In a way she was a woman scorned, partly explaining her fury. I asked if the same label would stick on Greco if he were the one ditched by Mary Ann? “Would we call him a man scorned?”
Enticing water
She was a public official who waded into disputes as if it were enticing pool of water. She clashed not just with lawyers who defended people she prosecuted; she tangled with plain citizens, colleagues, superiors and other government personalities as well. She was attractive, linked romantically to a police officer, two lawyers and a brother of a public official. Her hectic life has offered the police various theories to pin the murder on, except, critics say, the true theory.
They say she actually flirted with trouble and was delighted by the media scrutiny that inevitably resulted. She should be given that attention now, more so than when she was alive. Her case, like many other unsolved illegal killings, could be doomed to go the way of most recent violent incidents: into archives of cold cases.