SC transfers scribe’s slay case to Cebu City

KORONADAL CITY — The Supreme Court (SC) granted the request of the lawyer of slain Sultan Kudarat journalist Marlene Garcia-Esperat to transfer the venue of the trial from Tacurong City to Cebu City.

Nena Santos, legal counsel of the Esperat family, told The STAR that the SC’s second division has issued a favorable resolution on her letter-request dated June 24 for the transfer.

According to Santos, the tribunal has ordered the clerk of court of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 20 in Tacurong City to forward within 15 days from receipt of its resolution the entire records of Criminal Case No. 2568 to the Cebu City RTC.

Santos said the SC also ordered the Cebu City judge who would handle the Esperat case to work for the immediate transfer of the four detained accused — Estanislao Bismanos, Rowie Barua, Gerry Cabayag and Randy Grecia — to the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology in Cebu City.

The four are accused of killing Marlene Garcia-Esperat, a hard-hitting columnist of the weekly paper Midland Review which circulates in the cities of Tacurong and Cotabato and in the towns of Sultan Kudarat and North Cotabato. 

Esperat, 45, a former chemist of the Department of Agriculture in Central Mindanao who turned to writing to fight graft, was gunned down inside her home on Ilang-Ilang street in Tacurong City on the night of last Maundy Thursday while she was having dinner with her two children.

Reports said the gunman even greeted Esperat "Maayong gab-i (Good evening), Ma’am" before he fired a single shot into her face in front of her terrified children.

Esperat died on the spot from a bullet wound in the right eye. Reports said Esperat had received death threats.

After the killing, the lone assassin casually walked out of the Esperat residence.

Two ranking officials of the Department of Agriculture in Central Mindanao had been implicated in the gunslaying and ordered arrested, but their warrant of arrests were later recalled.