MANILA, Philippines (Update 3, 8:18 a.m., Jan. 16) — A Quezon City court junked the illegal possession of firearms case against National Democratic Front of the Philippines consultant Rafael Baylosis after it held that the evidence is insufficient to warrant conviction.
The court granted Baylosis’ demurrer to evidence and junked the case of the Philippine National Police.
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“This court, after considering the evidence, finds the evidence insufficient to support a finding of a conviction,” the order read.
A demurrer to evidence challenges the sufficiency of the prosecutor’s evidence.
The court ordered the release of Baylosis from detention.
Baylosis, a member of the NDFP Reciprocal Working Group on Political and Constitutional Reforms and allegedly the acting secretary of the New People's Army, was arrested in January last year by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Katipunan Road, Quezon City.
Baylosis and his companion, Guillermo Roque were arrested on a tip.
He was the first consultant to be rearrested since President Rodrigo Duterte canceled peace talks with communist rebels and declared the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing New People’s Army as terrorist groups in 2017.
Witnesses’ testimony inconsistent
Presiding Judge Editha Mina-Aguba held that the testimony of the police, who were material witnesses in the case, on the meeting and conversation with the informant was inconsistent.
She noted that PO2 Dennis Cauilan and PCI Nino Lope Briones attested that they were together when the frisking of the accused was conducted but Briones contradicted Cauilan’s testimony that evidence was recovered from Baylosis.
“The foregoing, patently, destroyed the credibility of the arresting officers; the same rendered their testimonies unreliable,” the court order read.
The court held that the confiscation of the subject items were illegal as “it is not a product of search incidental to a lawful arrest or a stop and frisk search, or the plain view doctrine.”
“The arrest of accused being illegal, the subsequent search of the persons of accused and the purported confiscated items cannot be used as evidence against them,” the court also said. — Kristine Joy Patag