Freedom of suspect in lawyer’s slay in the hands of DOJ panel

CEBU CITY — Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez is leaving it up to the prosecution panel to decide on the request of the primary suspect in the killing of lawyer Arbet Sta. Ana-Yongco, to have his freedom back.

The decision would be known once the panel, composed of prosecutors from the Department of Justice in Manila, will meet to decide if there would be further proceedings on the Yongco case or not.

"We can just deny it but we still have to find out," Gonzalez told The Freeman in a telephone interview.

The justice secretary said it is the right of suspect Michel Favila if he decides to "lift" the waiver of detention that he filed last Oct. 21 because no case has been filed against him yet in court.

"We haven’t received any letter from him. That is one of the things which the panel will tackle," he said.

The panel is composed of prosecutors Nolibien Quiambao, Roberto Escaro, and Cielito Lindo Luyun as chairman.

Orlando Salatandre, Favila’s counsel, said his client, who is under the protective custody of the National Bureau of Investigation’s Region 7 office, has the right to request his host to give his freedom back.

"There have been delays in the proceedings because the (members of the) panel of prosecutors were changed," Salatandre said.

Favila, a member of the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association (PBMA), submitted a handwritten request to the NBI last Dec. 1 to withdraw the waiver that he had signed last Oct. 21, exactly 10 days after the brutal killing of Yongco.

He turned himself in to the NBI in Puerto Princesa City, Palawan last Oct. 18 and was brought to Cebu City two days later.

Several witnesses tagged him as the gunman in the killing of Yongco at her office along Sikatuna street here last Oct. 11.

Yongco was the private prosecutor in the parricide case against Ruben Ecleo Jr., who the PBMA recognizes as its supreme master, in connection with the killing of his wife, Alona Bacolod. — Freeman News Service