Nemenzo insists he’s innocent of rebellion charges

Former University of the Philippines president Francisco Nemenzo denied yesterday that he had taken part in a failed coup last Feb. 24.

During his preliminary investigation at the Department of Justice, Nemenzo accused the National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine National Police of doing a "sloppy job" in investigating him and 48 others accused of rebellion.

"If the attachments to the subpoena are all the evidence they can produce, the NBI and (the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group) are wasting the time of the state prosecutors, including me in the rebellion case," he told a team of prosecutors led by Senior State Prosecutor Deana Perez.

Nemenzo said the NBI and the CIDG had conducted a very "sloppy" investigation, wrongly identifying him as "Prudencio Dodong Nemenzo."

"Everyone in UP knows my real name," he said. "A call to Diliman or a visit to UP Manila would have spared them from this embarrassing error."

Nemenzo said he could have taken advantage of the error and denied that he is the one being accused.

"But I do not want to get off the hook through a technicality," he said. "I welcome this charge, no matter how silly and malicious, as an opportunity to reiterate the views that the Arroyo government seeks to suppress."

The UP faculty from different campuses led by current president and business professor Emerlinda Roman backed up their former president with a signed manifesto entitled "The Futility of Scare Tactics."

"Our concern is that the threat of charges like these can hang indefinitely to cow others, not just in academe, into silence. Our concern is that this threat appears within a larger picture of forceful, at times painfully crude attempts at political repression," part of the statement read.

Meanwhile, lawyers of Nemenzo and his co-accused said there was no complaint affidavit that formally charged their clients with rebellion.

Former senator Rene Saguisag, former assemblyman Homobono Adaza and lawyer Marvic Leonen said their clients cannot "intelligently" answer the complaint against them without the affidavit.

"How can we answer the complaint when there is no complaint in the first place?" Saguisag said.

The lawyers asked the DOJ to terminate the proceedings against their clients due to the absence of a complaint from the NBI and CIDG.

Saguisag said the NBI and CIDG merely submitted a referral letter to the DOJ.

Perez denied the lawyers’ motion to terminate the proceedings against the respondents.

Instead, she ordered NBI special task force chief Reynaldo Esmeralda and CIDG director Chief Superintendent Jesus Abarsoza to appear in the next hearing on Nov. 20 and answer the allegations of the respondents.

Nemenzo’s lawyers said they will question before the Court of Appeals the DOJ panel’s decision denying their motion to terminate the preliminary investigation. — Jose Rodel Clapano