Mañalac: Filing case vs. Divinadera legal

Assistant regional state prosecutor Vicente Mañalac has insisted there was nothing illegal about the filing of a case against Cedrick Divinadera, the alleged accomplice of cult leader Ruben Ecleo Jr., who is himself accused of killing his wife Alona Bacolod Ecleo.

"I did not file the information despite the pendency of a parricide case in another sala," Mañalac argued in his amended position paper submitted to the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas in answer to the complaint filed by an official of the Crusade Against Violence group.

CAV's vice president for the Visayas Thelma Chiong, earlier accused of irregularity the act of Mañalac, then city prosecutor Cezar Tajanlangit and provincial prosecutor Napoleon Alburo in filing separate charge against Divinadera while the Ecleo case was still being heard in other court.

Mañalac asked the Ombudsman to dismiss the complaint contending that it is fallacious, or a legal misconception, to say that the filing of the murder case against Divinadera would cause the acquittal of Ecleo, whose parricide case is pending at the Regional Trial Court-branch 9.

Whoever conjured this thinking was wrong, Mañalac said explaining that the case versus Divinadera was filed "absolutely free from the influence of the judicial proceeding against Ecleo, and free from intervention of any other quasi-judicial body."

He said, "The information for murder was filed due to the existence of probable cause based on the voluntary confession of Divinadera duly assisted by his counsel in an investigation."

Mañalac said, there is "no way any prosecutor can acquit Ecleo by convicting Divinadera for a fiscal has no power to convict any person or order an acquittal" during arraignment, which is conducted by the court in court and not during the preliminary investigation.

"Evidence presented and admitted in one regional trial court is not transferable or ipso facto automatically admissible in another sala," he argued.

He added that all evidences presented in court will undergo judicial scrutiny, such that the RTCs will neither accept nor admit evidence from another sala by mere endorsement. - Liv G. Campo