Kin of slain journalists say Agra ruling 'null and void'

After filing a disbarment case against him, families of 12 journalists killed in the Maguindanao massacre are now eyeing to have Justice Secretary Alberto Agra's decision which dropped murder charges against two suspects. In an 11-page motion to vacate, the petitioners said Agra should take back his April 16 decision clearing ARMM governor Zaldy Ampatuan and Mamasapano mayor Akmad Ampatuan. According to the motion, the two Ampatuans' petition for review — which was the basis of Agra's resolution — should be dismissed because the families of the slain journalists were never furnished copies of it, a violation of the National Prosecution Service Rules of Procedures. The families, represented by the Roque and Butuyan Law Offices, also said they were denied due process because Agra issued the decision on the Ampatuans' petition for review without conducting any hearing. "Since the April 16, 2010 resolution was rendered in gross violation of the NPS rules of procedure and herein complainants' Constitutional right to due process, it is null and void, and should be vacated," the petition read. The families asked the Justice department that they be given an opportunity "to argue against and refute point by point" the Ampatuans' petition for review. In his petition for review, Zaldy said he was in Davao City around the time the massacre happened on November 23 last year in Salman village in Ampatuan town in Maguindanao, an alibi that Agra recognized in his ruling. Akmad should be stricken off the list of respondents in the multiple murder case that stemmed from the massacre because he was reportedly not identified by the witnesses in their affidavits, Agra said. Agra's April 16 decision has since triggered calls for the Justice chief to resign from his post. "Halatang minamadali nila ang pag-desisyon sa kaso [They are trying to rush the resolution of the case]," Romel Bagares, lawyer for the families, told GMANews.TV after a press conference in Makati City. A motion for reconsideration, filed last week by families of another set of Ampatuan massacre victims, is currently pending before the DOJ. Lawyer Nena Santos, who filed the motion for reconsideration on behalf of the families of the 25 victims including those from the Ampatuans' rival clan of Mangudadatus, said the motion to vacate would only prove the prosecution's intentions "are in harmony." "I don't think that filing the motion to vacate would be redundant because every individual family has the right to question the ruling," Santos told GMANews.TV in a separate interview. The families of the slain journalists earlier filed a disbarment case against Agra before the Integrated Bar of the Philippines in connection with his controversial ruling. The IBP is the national organization of lawyers in the Philippines, with about 40,000 members. It is also the mandatory bar association for Filipino lawyers. Agra obtained a law degree from the Ateneo de Manila University in 1990, and passed the Bar Exams a year later. Hearings on multiple murder case have been transferred at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City from the Philippine National Police headquarters at Camp Crame, as ordered by the Supreme Court. The trial was earlier suspended indefinitely due to a flurry of pending motions filed before the sala of Quezon City Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes. While a number of motions have already been resolved since trial resumed, several ones remain pending, including the defense's third motion asking Solis-Reyes to inhibit from the case. In their latest motion for recusation filed last Tuesday, clan patriarch Andal Ampatuan Sr. and his son Andal Jr. said Solis-Reyes was not "diligent" enough to realize that Akmad's name never appeared in the prosecution's evidence. "Accused see that the Presiding Judge is unfit to conduct trial. The lives and liberty of all the accused lie in the hands of a judge whose competence and integrity are, and continue to be, questionable," the Ampatuan father and son said. Asked what he thought about the defense's third attempt at having Solis-Reyes inhibit from the case, Bagares told GMANews.TV that he respected the move. "They have the right to exhaust all available avenues for their clients," he said. - RJAB Jr., GMANews.TV