The May 4 issue of the Inquirer carried a scathing editorial (“Big-shot fugitives”) which touched on the “celebrated” walkout of Cezar Mancao from his detention cell inside the National Bureau of Investigation headquarters last May 2.
DEEPLY DISTURBING. That may be the best way to describe the decision of the Special Fifth Division of the Court of Appeals invalidating the creation and thus the conclusions of a second panel of prosecutors that had investigated last year’s murder of Palawan environmentalist Gerry Ortega.
With a spokesperson like Edwin Lacierda, does President Aquino need enemies to cast his administration in a bad light?
A report in the Inquirer last April 15 said: “Nationwide manhunt on for Ecleo.” People with no more than a passing interest in the daily news might be forgiven if they assumed that Ruben Ecleo Jr., the Dinagat Island representative found guilty last week of the murder of his wife 10 years ago, had gone into hiding only recently, perhaps before or right after his conviction, hence the manhunt ordered by the Philippine National Police.
Impunity is an odd word. There used to be a heaviness to it, an almost incomprehensibility. It was a word used by lawyers and diplomats and judges, it was not part of school reports or interviews with the media. It was too big to be effective in sound bites, too foreign for speeches and tomato-tossing rallies. Impunity, like genocide, was a word that had power. To say it is to claim a state of such savagery that to use it is in itself a call to arms.
The bad language was a dead giveaway, betraying vacuousness, disinterest and fecklessness all in one blow. Asked why the administration had given the former governor of Palawan, Joel Reyes, and other suspects in the January 2011 murder of environmentalist and radio broadcaster Gerry Ortega until the weekend to surrender, in the face of an immediately [...]
Ex-Palawan Gov. Joel Reyes says he won’t surrender. That’s what he told a radio station in Puerto Princesa through a recorded message from his hideout. He is not hiding “to run away from justice but to avoid the persecution, ridicule and accusations that are being thrown at me without basis.” He says he will answer the accusations against him “at the right time.”
Remember Gerry Ortega? He was the broadcaster, environmentalist, and corruption whistleblower, not to mention veterinarian (the source of his bread and butter so he could engage in his advocacies), who was killed in broad daylight in Puerto Princesa, shot at the back of his head while he was buying clothes from an ukay-ukay store (which [...]
THE WIDOW and orphaned daughter of assassinated radio broadcaster Gerry Ortega went to the Kapihan sa Annabels last Saturday to ask for the help of media in getting justice for him. They distributed copies of the resolution of a three-man panel of prosecutors of the Department of Justice that made a preliminary investigation of the [...]
