I am a cousin of Christopher Soliva, the UP college student referred to in several letters published in the Inquirer: “Court decision goes against common sense” (2/9/15); “High court confirms conviction based on pure conjecture” (2/26/15); “Scandalous miscarriage of justice” (3/6/15); “What’s done at the top, so it is below” (3/17/15); “SC completely ignored reasonable doubt” (3/24/15), and perhaps others not yet brought to my attention. I am not familiar with the writers of those letters but I think I speak for the Soliva family in expressing deep appreciation for their sympathy and concern.
Those writers have been saying one thing: There was, both from the legal and (more importantly) commonsensical points of view, more than enough “reasonable doubt” entitling my cousin to the constitutional right to be presumed innocent. How can there be a finding of “guilt beyond reasonable doubt” based alone on the lone testimony of a witness who flip-flopped—first by saying (just moments following the attack) that he did not know who attacked him and then (after four days of “consultation” with lawyers) told everyone he knew who attacked him? Wasn’t it too obvious that he was already a corrupted, and therefore dubious, source of evidence?
Not being a lawyer, I certainly have brought this matter to the attention of many lawyers and law professors who had no personal interest in the case and could only be objective. Alas, every single one of them could only shake their heads in disbelief!
Soliva, a young promising student in his 20s then, now in the New Bilibid Prison in his 40s, has been sentenced to life imprisonment! What will it take to make the Supreme Court right so grave a wrong?
—MARGIE MEGAN LIBRANDO,
m_m_libra@yahoo.com