Anyway on to the show.
The past year has seen me covering the justice beat. From the moribund world of covering the police hierarchy I now find myself on the steps of the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice and the accompanying tide of legal beagles surrounding our institutions of justice.
Presently the much assailed Department of Justice is still reeling from the latest bomb dropped by no less than Secretary Alberto Agra himself.
Agra has recommended through a DOJ Resolution that charges of multiple murder against ARMM Governor Zaldy Ampatuan and Maguindanao Vice Governor Akmad Ampatuan be dropped. The secretary contends that Zaldy has presented enough additional evidence to prove he was in Davao City from November 20 to 23. In defense of Akmad, the resolution states that Akmad does not appear in the affidavit of case witness Kenny Dalandag. Akmad is also not included in any case filed by the National Bureau of Investigation and the PNP CIDG.
To be very fair about it, I was on the same flight with Zaldy on the afternoon of the Nov. 24 from Manila to Cotabato. He refused to talk to us then but one of his aides said they had just attended a meeting that morning in Malacanang.
But then again a whole range of possibilties can readily explain how Dalandag's testimony does not necessarily run contrary to Zaldy's assertions in his petition for review with the good secretary.
The 300 kilometers from Davao City to Maguindanao for instance can be traversed in the span of around six hours even less depending on one's speed. I remember travelling from Cotabato to Davao in under six hours on board an overloaded AUV.
The Ampatuans could likewise call on the air assets of the 6th Infantry Division for an impromptu airlift or at the very least hire a private jet or helicopter from Davao to Cotabato on the 22nd.
Either way it was still possible for Dalandag to have seen Zaldy attending the meeting of the Ampatuan hierarchy in Sharif Aguak at around 4PM and still have time to make it back to Davao.
But then a Cabinet Secretary of the ARMM, through his testimony asserts that he had a meeting with Zaldy in Davao City on that same day at around 5 pm.
Agra himself said in an interview with the press that mere presence does not prove conspiracy...which i take to mean that even if Zaldy was in that meeting in Sharif Aguak the day before the massacre, it does not prove he actively joined in the planning. But then this argument can easily be reversed to prove the exact resultant point, that absence from the scene likewise does not absolve one from conspiracy.
But since I am not a lawyer these are just points I am loudly pondering over.
The highly controversial move has put the secretary at odds with majority of the department's public prosecutors who had been slaving over the case since last November. Having covered the Maguindanao Massacre I have personally witnessed the tedious work put in by PNP and NBI investigators in the process of gathering evidence, securing potential witnesses and defying the dangers of conducting an investigation on Ampatuan turf. The same goes with the state prosecutors who I would like to believe are sincere in their efforts to win this case.
On the 19th of April, the public prosecutors led by no less than the Chief State Prosecutor went public to announce their opposition to the secretary's resolution.
There are current efforts to patch things up between the prosecutors and the secretary and a truce of sorts is in place with an agreement on both sides not to air their grievances in the media. This we understand is a Palace directed compromise.
But the prosecutors still maintain that Agra should not have reversed the original DOJ resolution finding probable cause against the two accused because the law they say lends greater weight to a positive identification in this case that of Dalandag over the negative assertions of the accused that he was not in Aguak during the time of the planning.
Agra says the public outrage over the resolution is expected and hints that his decision may have President Arroyo's approval.
I personally feel Agra's decision is unnecessary since the case is already in the sala of Judge Jocelyn Solis Reyes. Proving that Zaldy and Akmad were part of the conspiracy is a burden that should fall on prosecutors and best left to the appreciation of the judge and the merits tested in open court. Conspiracy by itself is hard to prove in court as mere presence alone in Agra's words does not guarantee participation in the crime. That the crime being discussed here invloves the wholesale slaughter of 57 individuals I feel the secretary shouldn't have taken it upon himself to determine Zaldy or Akmad's lack of complicity based solely on his evaluation of the evidence at hand.
The gravity of the crime should compel a cautious even redundant approach to any decision as an oversight committed at the level of the justice secretary can mean freedom for a possible mass murderer.
