LAPU-LAPU City Police Office (LCPO) Director Limuel Obon said only the reward money from City Hall will be received by the informants who helped his investigators solve the murder of Christine Lee Silawan.
Other personalities who promised to give a bounty failed to communicate with the LCPO.
Aside from City Hall, which promised to shell out a P1 million reward, Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Lloyd Dino and his friend Philippine Postal Corp. chairman Norman Fulgencio promised to give a total amount of P200,000.
A retired US serviceman based in Leyte pledged a P500,000 bounty; the Cebu Provincial Council for the Welfare of Children promised P200,000; and the Police Regional Advisory Council (Prac) vowed to give another P100,000.
According to Obon, the report on the five informants was submitted to the City Hall and Prac.
Obon said he wants the informants to directly receive the reward money.
He said he will let Police Regional Office 7 Director Debold Sinas reach out to the personalities who promised to give bounty because LCPO has no direct contact with them.
As to the Leyte-based American veteran, Obon said they are trying to reach out to him.
“I think he’s monitoring the case. Anyway, this is voluntary. Whether they will fulfill their promises or not, we would not mind. We’ll just thank them,” he said.
For her part, Mayor Paz Radaza said the City Government’s reward money is ready but it would be better to wait for the arraignment of Silawan’s confessed killer Renato Llenes.
If it were up to her, Radaza said she would give the bounty to the police for its hard work in solving the case.
Radaza said it is up to the police if it would give the reward money to the informants.
On his part, City Prosecutor Ruso Zaragoza said it would be nice to give a portion of the bounty to the 18-year-old boy who was first arrested by the National Bureau of Investigation 7.
The prosecutors dismissed the murder case against the boy, citing lack of evidence.
Meanwhile, the arraignment of Llenes was postponed to June 7, 2019.
Lapu-Lapu City Regional Trial Court Judge Christine Muga-Abad of Branch 70 rescheduled the arraignment after Llenes’s lawyer did not show up Wednesday morning, May 29.
Llenes was arrested by the police days after he allegedly killed Silawan, 16, in Sitio Mahayahay, Barangay Bankal last March 10.
The court decided to assign a counsel to Llenes but not someone from the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO).
Zaragoza said there would be a “conflict of interest” if the court tasked a PAO lawyer to defend Llenes as PAO chief Persida Acosta instructed her subordinates to assist the Silawan family in the legal matters.
He said the court might request the Mactan Island Lawyers League Inc. to represent Llenes in the arraignment as the organization has a legal aid program.
“Judge told us that the prosecution is still required to present evidence even if (Llenes) will plead guilty,” Zaragoza said.
For his part, Obon said it could be possible that lawyer Manuel Degollacion Jr., to whom Llenes divulged his extra-judicial confession, is not the accused’s counsel.
Obon said Llenes may have thought that he did not need a lawyer during arraignment because he has decided to enter a guilty plea to the murder charge.
None of the relatives of Silawan, including her parents, showed up during the arraignment.
According to Llenes, Degollacion is still his counsel.
The lawyer, he said, failed to arrive on time in court because of a miscommunication between them.
Llenes said he has no plans to take back what he said and that he will enter a guilty plea to put an end to the case.
The accused has been placed in an isolation cell at the Lapu-Lapu City Jail for security reasons as some of his fellow detainees are Silawan’s relatives.
“I vow to accept whatever is the verdict of the court,” Llenes said in Cebuano. (From GCM of SuperBalita Cebu, KAL)