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Ex-mayor tagged in publisher's slay freed after charge was dropped


DINGALAN, Aurora – After three years of detention at the Manila City Jail on charges in connection with the May 2005 killing of newspaper publisher Philip Agustin, former Dinagalan town mayor Jaime Ylarde is now a free man. Ylarde was released on Monday after Agustin’s daughter Rosebelle Agustin-Cruz withdrew her complaint against the former mayor. Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 6 Judge Jansen Rodriguez ordered the release, but was made public only on Saturday, a reliable source told GMANews.TV. The court said it had no other recourse but to dismiss the murder charge against Ylarde because of Rosebelle’s withdrawal. State Prosecutor Nestor Lazaro said Agustin-Cruz indeed withdrew her complaint through her counsel, lawyer Michael Mella. Ylarde was tagged as the brains behind the killing of Agustin, publisher of Starline Times Recorder, who was gunned down shortly before midnight of May 10, 2005, inside his daughter’s house in Barangay Paltic. The night Agustin was killed, he had delivered to this town more than 500 copies of Starline’s May 2-8, 2005 special edition detailing Ylarde’s alleged irregularities, like the construction of a cockpit arena, misuse of funds intended for the relief of victims of flashfloods and landslides. This reportedly angered the mayor he allegedly ordered Agustin killed. Aside from Ylarde, three others – Reynalo Morete, the self-confessed look-out, Nilo Morete, and Manuel Alday – had aslo been charged for the killing. Nilo Morete and Alday are both at large. Ylarde, a former police station commander of this town before he entered politics, denied involvement in the killing and surrendered himself in to the Baler RTC which originally handled the case. But in July 2006, the Supreme Court (SC) ordered the transfer of the venue of the trial to the Manila RTC from the Baler RTC Branch 66. Ylarde has long petitioned the court to grant him bail to no avail. GMA News could not get Judge Jansen Rodriguez’s comments since there was no office during weekends. – Ronaldo Madrid Leander, GMANews.TV
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