Priest asks SC: Free Abadilla slay convicts

Running priest Robert Reyes has asked the Supreme Court to nullify a judge's order imposing death against the five convicts for the June 1996 murder of Colonel Rolando Abadilla along Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City.

The parish priest of the Parish of Holy Sacrifice in UP Diliman said the conviction handed down by Quezon City Judge Jaime Salazar Jr. against SPO2 Cesar Fortuna, Joel and Rameses de Jesus, Lenido Lumanog and Augusto Santos was erroneous and should be stricken off the court records.

He cited as basis for his petition the admission, which some legal quarters say was covered by the zeal of confession, made by an unnamed "leader" of the Alex Boncayao Brigade, the communist party's urban guerrilla his squad, that the five death convicts were innocent.

Reyes even showed mediamen the gold Omega Deville wristwatch of Abadilla which was turned over to him by one of the ABB hitmen, apparently as evidence that they took the watch after the ambush.

But when the clergy moved to reopen the case and present the "vital evidence," Salazar junked this, saying the motion was filed "belatedly" and branded Reyes' testimony as "pure hearsay," the information having been merely relayed to him.

He then branded the jurist's ruling as "oppressive, derogatory, arbitrary and whimsical" as the lower court judge even made scathing remarks against the priest and the whole Catholic Church in general.

Reyes also told the 15-member High Tribunal that his petition is not without basis as no less than retired Supreme Court Justice Florenz Regalado, whose 96 percent bar rating is still unsurpassed, had stated in his Remedial Law Compendium that such testimonies of non-parties and the evidence they present can be admissible as evidence in court.

"Whether this underground ABB personality is deemed to have fled the jurisdiction, or he is unavailable to testify for fear of his person's safety, his admissions to Fr. Reyes is admissible as an exception to the hearsay rule," his lawyer, Neri Javier Colmenares, stated in their petition.

"Despite their (ABB) non-recognition of the government's jurisdiction over them, they indirectly recognized the court's jurisdiction in this case, if only to correct what they perceive to be an erroneous judgment of the court, convicting five innocent men to death for an act which the ABB is guilty of," they added.

Reyes also attacked Salazar's pre-judgment of the Abadilla case when he said in a television interview, even before he filed his motion, that his testimony will only be hearsay.

He also tried to rectify the judge's statement that there was no Abadilla watch to speak of because investigators discovered that only the victim's clutch bag was taken from him.