Ampatuan’s contempt charge vs lawyer junked

MANILA, Philippines - A judge has junked an indirect contempt charge filed by former Datu Unsay mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr. against a private prosecutor in the Maguindanao massacre trial.

Quezon City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 218 Judge Luis Zenon Maceren, in a decision released to the media yesterday, dismissed for lack of merit the contempt charge against lawyer Nena Santos.

“Two courts (QC-RTC Branch 221 and 224) have also consistently held that there is nothing contemptuous about the statements made by… Santos,” Maceren in the five-page decision dated Jan. 3.

The judge was referring to the separate rulings of Branch 221 Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes and Branch 224 Judge Tita Marilyn Villordon on the other contempt charges filed by Ampatuan against Santos and other prosecutors in the Maguindanao massacre case.

Ampatuan is among the initial 197 suspects charged for the murder of 58 people, including 32 media practitioners, on Nov. 23, 2009.

In an omnibus order dated May 28, 2010, Solis-Reyes – the judge handling the multiple murder case – cleared members of the prosecution panel from contempt raps and ruled that “only when the statements made tend to influence the court or obstruct the administration of justice that the same may be made contemptuous.”

However, she warned prosecutors and their witnesses to refrain from making unnecessary statements before the media that will delve into the merits of the case.

Meanwhile, Villordon, in her April 19, 2011 order, said it found no violation of the 2010 omnibus order as it only restrained the panel from making statements that delved into the merits of the case.

In his ruling, Maceren said that the acts ruled upon by the other courts are the same ones that are the subject of the case filed before his court.

He ruled that the courts are “much tougher than the petitioner would like to believe. The court’s impartiality shall not easily crumble just because people speak of their opinion regarding a case pending before it.”

Questioned reports

Ampatuan cited two articles in his complaint against Santos, newspaper reports dated July 3, 2010 and Feb. 10, 2011.

The 2010 report, which is also the main subject of the dismissed complaint before RTC Branch 224, was about the ambush that injured a lawyer of a witness in the massacre trial.

Ampatuan said the statement of Santos, who “surmised” that the ambush was meant to warn the families of the victims and witnesses, painted him as being responsible for the ambush.

Meanwhile, Santos was quoted in the 2011 report reacting to the cross-examination conducted on a witness by defense lawyer Paris Real.

The former Datu Unsay mayor claimed that Santos violated the sub-judice rule and asked the court to sentence Santos to one month’s imprisonment and pay a fine of P5,000.