By EUGENE ADIONG
BACOLOD City — Three suspects in killing Judge Henry Arles of Kabankalan City might escape detention, the judge’s son said.
Jessie Daguia, Alejandro Capunong, and Eddie Fortunado were “boasting in the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology facility in Kabankalan that they will be out of jail before they can be transferred” to another jail in Metro Manila, Philip Arles yesterday said, citing a “reliable source.”
All three were members of the Revolutionary Proletarian Army–Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPA–ABB).
“It was not clear, however, if the three will escape or be rescued by their comrades,” said the younger Arles.
Other suspects still at large were Marvin Salve, Gerald Tabujara, and Rustom Puro, also RPA–ABB members, and Ilog municipal government employee Emmanuel Medes.
The Supreme Court has ordered the transfer the Arles murder case from Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 61 in Kabankalan City to the Quezon City RTC.
It also ordered the Kabankalan RTC clerk of court to forward the case records to its counterpart in Quezon City and the Quezon City RTC executive judge to raffle the case.
Philip Arles on June 3 last year filed a petition to transfer the case to any RTC in Metro Manila. Supreme Court granted the petition through a resolution dated June 9, 2014.
He said the counsel of the jailed suspects has filed a motion for reconsideration against the high court’s order.
The Arles family also wanted the jailed suspects transferred from Negros Occidental to any jail in Metro Manila.
According to Philip Arles, the suspects’ transfer will let the government save on the cost of travel during hearings and spare the witnesses from any threat from the suspects and the alleged masterminds.
“Since influential political personalities have been implicated in the case, the possibility that undue influence may be employed upon persons officially tasked by law to prosecute or hear the case, including the prosecution witnesses, is not remote,” the Supreme Court said in the resolution on the case transfer.
The RPA–ABB suspects tagged Ilog mayor John Paul Alvarez, his father and former vice governor Genaro Alvarez, and Cauayan vice mayor Jerry Tabujara as masterminds./PN
