ONE reason the Marcos administration is standing pat on its position rejecting a formal investigation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) into the alleged mass killings of drug addicts and pushers during the time of ex-president Rodrigo Duterte is that the Philippine criminal justice system is working well.
Faith in our very own justice system was also cited by Duterte in opposing the ICC during his term. Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, who had served several administrations in various capacities, earlier said that yes, our justice system maybe slow and it has a few flaws, but it is working.
Recent developments in the Judiciary, specifically at the level of the regional trial court, tend to reinforce the truth in these pronouncements by Marcos, Duterte and Remulla.
Last week, a court in Taguig City found model Deniece Cornejo, businessman Cedric Lee, and two others guilty of serious illegal detention for ransom of actor-host Vhong Navarro. Taguig Regional Trial Court Branch 153 Judge Mariam Biem sentenced Cornejo, Lee, Ferdinand Guerrero and Simeon Palma Raz to life in prison after convicting them for the assault and extortion of Navarro in 2014. It took all of 94 pages to reach the decision.
‘It is our hope that our local courts will continue dispensing justice to all victims of injustice, not just in popular cases such as the Cornejo-Navarro case and the Lapid killing.’
The case may be summarized thus: Lure the actor into a trap. With your gang, maul him to a pulp, black and blue, short of killing him. Detain him in your model-girlfriend’s condo and scare him enough to agree to pay ransom of at least one million pesos, in exchange for freedom and a clean slate from court charges of rape. This happened 10 years ago in a condominium in BGC, that enclave of the rich and famous, according to court records. The convicts were also ordered to jointly pay Navarro P300,000 in civil indemnity, moral damages and exemplary damages. The bail bonds posted by the accused were canceled.
Meanwhile, solutions and retribution in the celebrated case of Percy Lapid are beginning to unravel.
The gunman in the Oct. 3, 2022 murder of broadcaster Percival “Percy Lapid” Mabasa was sentenced on Monday to a maximum of 16 years in prison, the fifth among several persons found guilty. Mabasa’s family said their quest for justice will continue, as the government authorities are still looking for the mastermind in the ambush-murder.
Joel Escorial was convicted of homicide after he entered into a plea bargain that allowed him to plead guilty to a lesser offense in exchange for disclosing information about the murder, according to lawyer Danilo Pelagio.
Judge Harold Cesar Huliganga of the Las Piñas City Regional Trial Court Branch 254 handed down the decision imposing on Escorial the penalty of reclusion temporal, whose minimum term is eight years and eight months of imprisonment, with a maximum of 16 years.
According to Pelagio, Escorial had entered a guilty plea “as an accomplice” to the assassination allegedly plotted by the principals, including dismissed Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) Director General Gerald Bantag, who remains in hiding since being charged with the double murder of Mabasa and prisoner Cristito “Jun Villamor” Palaña, one of the alleged “middlemen.”
Palaña was found dead inside New Bilibid Prison on Oct. 18, 2022, after Escorial had turned himself in to the authorities and confessed to killing Mabasa.
At a press conference, Escorial implicated a number of people, including a Bilibid inmate later identified as Palaña who allegedly served as an intermediary in a purported P550,000 contract to kill the radio journalist. When Palaña’s body was discovered shortly after Escorial’s confession, prison authorities, led at the time by Bantag, claimed that the inmate had died of natural causes. But an independent autopsy conducted by forensic pathologist Raquel Fortun showed that Palaña might have died of suffocation from a plastic bag placed over his head.
It is our hope that our local courts will continue dispensing justice to all victims of injustice, not just in popular cases such as the Cornejo-Navarro case and the Lapid killing.
