How the Lapu-Lapu fiscal got out of a fix in Silawan murder

The boy “suspect” is back in the custody of DSWD. Status quo is restored but it has not necessarily changed the weight of evidence. Did NBI and police get the real killer?

“Yung nakapatay ng bata, ni-release (ng prosecutor). Tinawagan ko yun. Sabi ko, i-recall mo yung desisyon. Have the guy rearrested. Piskal ako.” --President Duterte, in a speech in Cotabato, March 26, 2019

Other presidents in the past must have also intervened in the administration of justice. After all, prosecutors or fiscals, as they used to be called, are administratively under the justice secretary, who is under the President and a member of the Cabinet.

The difference is that obviously past presidents didn’t talk directly with prosecutors. An aide like Bong Go gives the message to the justice chief, who relays it to the head prosecutor in Lapu-Lapu, who orders the assistant prosecutor handling the case.

The difference is that clearly past presidents didn’t tell the nation in a public speech that they reversed the order of a prosecutor by calling him up on the phone.

Unseemly at best

It may not be a crime, but it would look unseemly for the highest official of the land to reverse the decision of an assistant prosecutor. Checks on erroneous rulings are provided by the chief prosecutor, regional prosecutor, the justice secretary and the courts.

Assistant Prosecutor Ruso Zaragoza must have been stupefied and terrified, being placed on the horn of a big-ticket dilemma. How could he reverse his order, approved by his chief and announced to the world, with no facts and law supporting the turnaround?

President’s arguments Zaragosa couldn’t use the President’s arguments, namely: (1) he was a fiscal before he became mayor, congressman and president; and (2) “hot pursuit” in “modern” times, cannot be effected in 24 hours and when the suspect uses a plane. The law and the facts as well as Supreme Court decisions all back Zaragosa’s ruling. Yet there was the President, the boss of bosses, telling him to “recall” his order.

Zaragoza had already stopped in the inquest proceeding and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) released the 17-year-old former boyfriend of the victim, 16-year-old Christine Silawan, whose gruesome murder on a vacant lot in Lapu-Lapu last March 10 or 11 shook Cebu and the rest of the nation. The prosecutor was conducting a preliminary investigation and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) filed or was about to file a motion for reconsideration with the prosecutor’s office when the President called.

Protective custody

Zaragoza and the boy’s lawyer, Vincent Isles, convinced the boy’s mother that the boy would be safer if he were in protective custody. (Repetitive use of “boy” is preferable to the use of CICL or “child in conflict with the law.” He is no longer a “person of interest”; he is effectively a “suspect” but he is not called that, not until he turns 18. Politically correct words can be annoying.)

The mother’s fear about her child being targeted by extreme sympathizers of Christine must have prompted her to agree. The boy’s lawyer also didn’t want to offend the President. Isles explained Duterte’s action, saying he must not have read the whole case and must have been “misadvised,” misinformed about the real situation.

Status quo was restored. The boy was back at the care center in Lapu-Lapu last March 21, less than five days after he was ordered freed by the prosecutor. But Zaragoza showed concern for the law and the image of his office by saying repeatedly it was not a “rearrest” and his ruling has not been reversed.

Weight of evidence

A government functionary was able to fix the problem created by the President’s publicized order.

Isles was right about that order being based on inadequate facts. What he didn’t say was that it did not cure whatever flaw or lack in the case built up by law enforcers.

Taking back the former b.f. of the victim into custody, protective and voluntary or otherwise, did not change the weight of evidence. NBI and police may need more to make the charges stick, not just with the prosecutor but, more importantly, with the court.

A concerned public, instructed by the Ella Joy Pique murder in recent memory, wants to be sure this time that the law enforcers got their man, er, boy.