Fiscals seek understanding for staying off Archival case

CEBU, Philippines - “Let us respect their decision.”

This was the appeal of Regional State Prosecutor  Fernando Gubalane to the public who has criticized the Cebu Provincial Prosecutor’s Office for inhibiting from resolving the complaints filed against police officials tagged in killing lawyer Noel Archival.

Gubalane said that eventhough the Prosecutor’s Office’s reason for inhibiting is not on a legal basis as indicated in their manual, this is not limited to the cited grounds, he said.

Provincial Prosecutor Pepita Jane Petralba has said that they will forward the records of the multiple murder and frustrated murder cases filed against the Regional Highway Patrol Unit to RSP after their office’s inhibition.

Gubalane said though that he has not yet received such records as well as the order of the panel of prosecutors who inhibited from the case.

Gubalane said that once the records are forwarded to their office, he will communicate with the Department of Justice and request for guidance on what to do considering that the camp of the respondents, RHPU-7 chief, Sr. Supt. Romualdo Iglesia, Sr. Insp. Joselito Lerion, Chief Insp. Eduardo Mara, SPO4 Edwin Galan and PO1 Alex Bacani has a pending request before the DOJ that the preliminary investigation be done in Manila.

Petralba said that though they have inhibited from handling the case, they are still willing to resolve it should the DOJ rule for them to conduct the preliminary investigation.

She claimed that inhibiting from the case is only to protect the integrity of the institution.

“Verily, the respondents’ persistent imputation of bias and partiality on the part of the panel, in particular and this office, in general, has indubitably become an affront to this office integrity and credibility as they are now taking this office to task and seriously accusing it no end of bias and want of cold neutrality of an impartial arbiter,” the order, penned by the panel of prosecutors, reads.

Lawyer Hazan Bargamento, one of the legal counsels of the respondents, has said that they wanted prosecutors outside Cebu to conduct the preliminary investigation for the sake of fair play.

Gubalane, however, said that it is the RSP that can rule as to who shall handle the complaints and the conduct of the preliminary investigation.

Lawyer Gloria Lastimosa-Dalawampu, legal counsel of the Archival family, earlier questioned the order of the panel, claiming it was not on legal grounds.

Lawyer Archival and his companions were ambushed on February 18, 2014 in Barangay Corro, Dalaguete while on their way to Cebu City. Archival, his driver Alejandro Jayme, and bodyguard Candido Miñoza were killed during the attack, while Paolo Cortes, on-call assistant of Archival, survived. — (FREEMAN)