MOTION DISMISSED | Courts junk motion to quash warrants for activists arrested on Human Rights Day

May 26, 2021 , 07:04 PM

(May 26, 2021) – Two National Capital Region courts have thrown out separate motions challenging the validity of search warrants used against four activists arrested in December, contradicting an earlier ruling of another local court that freed a journalist and a trade union organizer, lawyers said on Tuesday.

The Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 50 and the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 91 had found sufficient evidence to back the legality of the search warrants, which the police used to search for guns in the homes of trade union organizers who were arrested.

Activists Joel Demate, Mark Ryan Cruz, Romina Riaselle Astudillo, and Jaymie Gregorio were facing trials for illegal possession of firearms and explosives, a non-bailable crime that they repeatedly denied. They said the police planted the weapons as evidence against them.

“There exists substantial evidence to support the issuance of the search warrant in these cases,” Manila Judge Bibiano Colasito said in a decision dismissing Demate’s motion last May 18.

“Verily, at this early, if based merely upon the record, and notwithstanding the alleged discrepancies or inadequacies in the statements of the applicant and his witnesses, it cannot be determined with certitude that the applicant and his witnesses prevaricated the truth as the same needs further scrutiny from the court.”

Similarly, Quezon City Judge Kathleen Rosario Dela Cruz-Espinosa arrived at the same decision, which was released on April 12, affirming the warrant against the three other activists was based on probable cause.

Cruz-Espinosa said there is no “hard-and-fast rule” in examining applications for search warrants in response to the groups’ challenge to the procedure employed by Executive Judge Cecilyn Burgos-Villavert in issuing the legal document.

She also rejected the argument saying law enforcers went overboard by taking equipment not clearly stated in the search warrant, ruling these objects should still be admissible before the court.

“The additional items seized, although not described or provided in the search warrant, are either recovered in plain view of the police officers or bear direct relation to the offense for which the same was issued,” Espinosa said, “thus, must not be suppressed or rendered inadmissible.”

Both decisions were released only on Tuesday.

In a press briefing, the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers slammed the junking of the two recent motions, which was largely different from the decision earlier released by another judge.

“Ano ba ‘yung nakita ng Mandaluyong court na hindi makita o ayaw tingnan ng trial courts dito sa Manila at Quezon City?” asked lawyer Kathy Panguban, one of the activists’ legal counsels. “Ito po ang mind-boggling sa aming lahat na tumatayong legal counsel sa mga natitirang [inaresto].”

All four labor organizers were arrested in almost simultaneous police operations conducted during the International Human Rights Day last December, along with two other activists and one journalist. Only Dennise Velasco has yet to file his motion to quash.

Manila Today editor Lady Ann Salem and trade activist Rodrigo Esparago were released in March after a Mandaluyong court granted the motion they filed last year, slamming the vagueness of the warrant of arrest implemented by the police during the raid.

Judge Monique Quisumbing-Ignacio, who penned the ruling, was red-tagged after releasing her decision.

Human rights groups have repeatedly pressed the Supreme Court to act on the questionable warrants used to raid homes and offices of activist groups, saying law enforcers weaponize this legal route to clamp down on dissent.

In response, the high court plans to release an issue surrounding the use of body cameras in legitimate police operations which they believe would add a layer of protection to the accused.

(Beatrice Puente/MM)

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