By KATHLYN DELA CRUZ
THE arraignment of three more suspects in the Ampatuan massacre case was postponed today due to varied reasons.
Sultan sa Borong former Vice Mayor Sukarno Badal, an Ampatuan ally before surrendering October last year, did not appear before the court.
Lawyers of other suspects Butukan Malang and Nasser Malaguia have filed motions for suspension of arraignment because the names of the supposed accused differ from those being detained; they refused to be arraigned. Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes granted the suspension, and gave the prosecution 15 days to file its comment or opposition.
In the hearing earlier, defense lawyers continued with the cross examination of the documents previously presented by prosecution witness PO1 Rudimer Daproza.
Lawyer Sigfrid Fortun clarified the inventory of materials collected from the scene, with Daproza affirming that his team indeed gathered personal belongings of the victims such as a camera, wallets, cellphones, bracelets, watches, car keys, identification cards, and money.
Another defense lawyer Paris Real questioned if Daproza has attended seminars or read any book regarding the protection, preservation, collection, and transfer of evidences to ascertain the police officer’s knowledge of the assigned task. Daproza answered that he hasn’t.
Real also inquired if Daproza brought equipment for evidence gathering like knife, screwdriver, scalpel, and pliers.
Daproza said he only had a pair of scissors with him as the mentioned tools were not necessary for his collection of evidences.
Lawyer Manuel Andres Jr. probed on why the police officer had turned over some of the items he recovered from the crime scene to the victims’ relatives when these could have been presented to the court as evidences.
Daproza claimed the items were important to the victims’ families, but Manuel argued Daproza should have just temporarily allowed them to take custody.
The prosecution then presented their next witness, PO2 Richard Santuele of the Regional Crime Laboratory 12.
Santuele, who was the official photographer of the Secene of the Crime Operatives Region 12 team, presented pictures from the massacre and described their significance to the crime.
Defense lawyers have agreed to record all 86 photos as evidences, but the prosecution will still conduct a direct examination of Santuele’s pictures that are not similar to those presented by previous witness Police Chief Inspector Raymond Cabling.
The direct examination is set on May 25 at Camp Bagong Diwa in Bicutan, Taguig, along with the arraignment of suspect Badal.
The Ampatuan massacre that caused 58 deaths is the worst political violence in the Philippines. — with reports from Cyrill Yambao
(The authors are students of the University of the Philippines doing their summer internship at VERA Files.)