Beltran decries Makati court ruling

Anakpawis party-list Rep. Crispin Beltran said yesterday the Makati regional trial court ignored the "incontrovertible documentary evidence" he had submitted to rebut the non-bailable rebellion charges filed against him by government prosecutors.

Defense counsel Romeo Capulong, speaking on behalf of his client who is detained at the Philippine Heart Center, complained that Judge Encarnacion Jaja Moya did not even explain on how she arrived at the decision in upholding the indictment.

Among the vital pieces of evidence the court disregarded were the attendance sheet of Beltran and the Batasan 5, who were all present in the Feb. 20 House session, which runs counter to claims by a star witness that they were with renegade soldiers in a Batangas town.

The others included a "footage" taken from the "House security camera" that proved the presence of Reps. Beltran, Satur Ocampo, Teddy Casino, Joel Virador, Rafael Mariano and Liza Maza "at committee hearings and journals of plenary sessions."

"The one-paragraph commitment order did not even discuss how the court came to conclude that there was probable cause for rebellion in Beltran’s case, despite volumes of incontrovertible documentary counter-evidence disputing the charges," complained Capulong.

Capulong said they will ask Moya to reconsider her decision, insisting that the charges were merely trumped up, false and fabricated. The Makati court scheduled Beltran’s and his co-accused, first lieutenant Lawrence San Juan, arraignment on June 8.

"I feel like crying (after hearing the news)," the 73-year-old veteran labor leader said. He said this is the second time he is facing rebellion charges, the first being during martial law where he was "incarcerated and tortured as a political prisoner in Camp Crame."

Moya, of Makati RTC Branch 146, was the second magistrate to handle the case after Judge Jenny Delorino voluntarily inhibited herself from trying the case. Prior to that, Delorino rejected prosecutors’ amended information to include the Batasan 5 in Beltran’s case.

"While the Arroyo administration is doing nothing to immediately stop the extra-judicial killings of activists, it is waging intense political repression against progressive parliamentarians through legalistic means," Beltran said.

"Legalistic, but not in accordance with the spirit of the law and of justice," he added.

On the other hand, Beltran stressed that he would "face and expose these false and fabricated charges in court and welcome initiatives to oppose repression through political means and through mass protests in the streets."