CA on Torralba case: A miscarriage of justice?

I was about to cross Mango Ave (Gen. Maxilom Ave.) for the opening of Dimsum Break at the JESA Management Bldg. when I noticed a few policemen at the corner. I chatted with the Citom enforcer assigned there and he told me that Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III was going to pass by. I thought that it would truly be a sight to see P.Noy’s motorcade pass through Mango Ave. without the usual sirens accompanying a Presidential motorcade. Unfortunately, I had other better things to do and if he passed along while I was inside the building, it was just my tough luck.

P.Noy came to Cebu to give a briefing to the officers of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce, Inc. (CCCI), the Cebu Business Club, the Mactan Chamber, the Dumaguete Chamber, Bohol Chamber, the American Chamber and Mandaue Chamber (whom the emcee forgot to mention). P.Noy arrived into the ballroom, made a 15-minute speech and after the Q&A, he left for a meeting with his Yellow supporters at the Cebu Coliseum, which I would like to believe, was more important to him.

Now whether the Chamber got their infrastructure wish list, I really don’t know. What I know is that during the campaign, P.Noy made many promises, but with regards our infrastructure needs, he never made a single promise. During the Presidential Forum sponsored last January by the Cebu Business Club, he said that he would consult with the stakeholders in Cebu. Now whether that was a “consultation” meeting, I cannot say as of the moment.

I’m sure a lot of the stories in our local dailies would be carrying the story of P.Noy in Cebu. But in my book, the bigger story we need to discuss is the reversal by the Court of Appeals (CA) of a Feb.26, 2008 conviction by Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Estela Alma of John Lloyd Ortiz, the principal suspect in the attempted murder of our good friend Circe “Kuya Choy” Torralba in the year 2004 where he suffered three gunshot wounds.

Just when we were giving our sympathies to the Judiciary on the raging issue of their budget, we get this news which many of us in the media believe is a miscarriage of justice. The CA came up with three issues against the Trial court and one of them is whether it committed a grave error in convicting the accused despite the clear existence of reasonable doubt.

This issue could be relevant if Choy Torralba died in that shooting. But as far as I know, he did not only see his assailant, he was able to fire back at him, which is why the man was not able to finish him off. The CA gave too much credence to a witness who insisted that there were two gunmen, not one and that witness said that it was not Ortiz. So if it was not Ortiz who shot Choy Torralba, then who shot him?

Because of this news, which comes just a week before the Cebu media celebrates Press Freedom Week, many radio commentators are lambasting this decision as an affront to Press Freedom. I called up Kuya Choy who was sulking over what he said was a miscarriage of justice, regretting that he could have accepted an offer to mediate this case over a princely sum of money. He now suspects that this money could have been used to acquit the suspect, which we all know is difficult to prove.

Indeed, we live in dangerous times when human life has become so cheap. People seething with hate just go and kill anyone whom they believe may have hurt them. What is frustrating in this case is the fact that this case took six years to convict yet in the end, this conviction was overturned. This means, either Kuya Choy would bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court so it could once more be reversed or he can end it here by accepting the CA decision.

If a celebrated case takes 6 years to resolve, for or against, it is no surprise that we see a lot of extra-judicial killings happening, not just here in Cebu, but all over the country. Bringing the case in court is just too frustrating, too taxing, not to mention too slow that people simply take the law into their own hands; after all, your friendly neighborhood hitman really isn’t expensive. The good ones go as high as P10,000 while you can hire a killer for a mere P2,000!

I know that my Kuya Choy is feeling low these days simply because he felt a grave injustice was done against him. He also told me of another case in Bohol where he filed a case against a powerful politician who lost in the lower court and lost the CA, but when it landed in the Supreme Court, it was reversed. Call it tough luck Kuya, but who knows, with this Supreme Court flip-flopping over the decision of the 16 towns that were made into cities then made into towns again, who knows the SC just might reverse what the CA reversed in your case.

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