Palace to seek reversal of CA ruling on Reyes

MANILA, Philippines — Malacañang yesterday vowed to exhaust all legal remedies to reverse the Court of Appeals (CA)’s decision clearing former Palawan governor Joel Reyes for the death of environment advocate and broadcaster Gerry Ortega.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque, who served as lawyer of the Ortega family, maintained that the evidence against Reyes is strong.

“We will exercise all legal options to reverse this decision of the Court of Appeals,” Roque said in a press briefing.

He said the release of Reyes was a “very sad development for freedom of the press in this country.”

The spokesman said the murder of Ortega was “a classic case of extralegal killing” since the late environmentalist was both a media practitioner and an activist.

Roque said he was alarmed by the CA decision favoring Reyes.

“For the first time, I was allowed by the President to comment in my individual capacity on this case. So I have expressed consent to comment, and my comment is, it is not true that the case was a miracle. The case is a ‘kababalaghan’ (mystery), but it’s really a travesty of justice,” he said.

Roque said the Supreme Court has ruled on the validity of the second panel formed to determine probable cause against Reyes. He said the panel had concluded there was probable cause against the former governor.

“I find it alarming that the CA decision, number one, overruled an earlier Supreme Court decision; and number two, arrogated its own judgment for that of the regional trial court that had the opportunity to physically accept the evidence, observe the demeanor of the witnesses and concluded that there was in fact probable cause,” Roque said.

Filing of appeal

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II said the government would look into the legal implication of the CA decision clearing Reyes in the murder case.

Aguirre said the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) would have to study if the acquittal of Reyes by the appellate court bars the government from filing an appeal.

“The filing of an appeal depends on the CA ruling – if it will constitute double jeopardy,” he explained, referring to the legal doctrine that prohibits filing of the same criminal case against the same accused already cleared by court.

Aguirre said it would be the OSG, which handles appeals on criminal cases before the CA, that would decide if an appeal could still be filed on the case.

Reyes was ordered released by the CA in a decision issued on Jan. 4, which held that there was no basis for the Puerto Princesa regional trial court (RTC) to indict him for Ortega’s death.

The CA’s former 11th Division cited the lack of evidence presented to try Reyes for Ortega’s killing and ordered the Palawan RTC to dismiss the cases against Reyes and release him immediately from detention.

The decision was penned by Associate Justice Normandie Pizarro, who also wrote the 2017 decision that acquitted alleged pork barrel mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles in her serious illegal detention case and the CA decision that junked the compensation claim of about 10,000 human rights victims from the Marcos estate, with Associate Justices Danton Buesser and Victoria Isabel Paredes concurring. – Edu Punay, Rhodina Villanueva