NBI investigates Cebu RTC judge

CEBU — The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) is now questioning how a Regional Trial Court judge in Barili town was able to handle the case of a self-confessed accomplice in the killing of cult leader Ruben Ecleo Jr.’s wife.

This, despite an administrative order of the Supreme Court designating former Lapu-Lapu RTC Judge Leopoldo Cañete to handle newly filed cases in the sala of Barili Judge Ildefonso Suerte.

The controversy arose over the case filed against Cedrick Devinadera, the self-confessed accomplice in the killing of Alona Bacolod, wife of Ecleo, supreme leader of the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association.

The Supreme Court issued Administrative Order 36004 last March 3, exactly the same day the provincial prosecutor’s office elevated to Suerte’s sala the murder case against Devinadera.

In its order, the High Court directed Cañete to act as Suerte’s assisting judge and instructed him to act on newly filed cases whose pre-trial had not been terminated as of the date of the issuance of the administrative order.

Suerte convicted Devinadera on May 7 as an accessory to Bacolod’s killing.

While he was arraigned for murder on April 23, Devinadera was convicted of a lesser offense as an accessory to homicide after he entered into a plea bargaining agreement with the prosecution when he was re-arraigned on May 7. He was meted a jail term of four to eight years.

In earlier interviews, Suerte insisted that he did not commit any irregularity when he convicted Devinadera.

If there should be any investigation, he said it should involve the prosecutors and not him.

In a radio interview, Deputy Court Administrator Christopher Lock said the Supreme Court has taken cognizance of the resolution of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines-Cebu City chapter urging the tribunal to probe Suerte’s actions.

But Lock clarified that the administrative order designating Cañete as assisting judge in Suerte’s sala has nothing to do with the Devinadera controversy.

Lock said the order was issued to give Suerte enough time to dispose of all of his cases before he retires in January next year.

NBI-Region 7 chief Reynaldo Esmeralda said the administrative order would serve as new evidence in the case they would recommend to be filed against Suerte with the Supreme Court.

The bureau’s recommendation, however, will be evaluated and approved by the legal division of the NBI central office in Manila and subsequently, by NBI director Reynaldo Wycoco.

Esmeralda said two lawyers in the NBI legal division will separately evaluate the administrative and criminal aspects of the recommended case. He, however, is optimistic that Wycoco will approve their recommendation.

The NBI has recommended the filing of charges against seven officials of the Department of Justice who had a hand in the filing of the complaint against Devinadera until the case was elevated to the court.

The IBP also passed a resolution urging the DOJ to investigate assistant provincial prosecutor Vicente Mañalac and other prosecutors involved in the filing of the case.

The IBP said the plea bargaining agreement between Devinadera and his accuser, Jaime Bacolod, said to be Alona’s first cousin, that led to his immediate conviction as an accessory to homicide, was anomalous because the real offended parties were Alona’s surviving brothers and not Jaime.

The IBP questioned why Suerte convicted Devinadera despite the pendency of the parricide case against Ecleo who was charged in 2002 as a primary suspect in his wife’s killing.

The IBP said the DOJ seemed to have demonstrated "manifest inconsistency" when the city prosecutor’s office filed the parricide case against Ecleo two years ago and subsequently, the murder case against Devinadera in March 2004.

Devinadera surrendered to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in General Santos City in December 2003, claiming that he was the one who killed Alona.

He pointed to Alona’s brother Ben as the alleged mastermind of the killing.

Devinadera claimed that he decided to surrender because his conscience had bothered him. He insisted that nobody paid him to admit the crime but claimed that Ben gave him P30,000 which he used to hop from one place to another to hide.

Alona’s body was found inside a black garbage bag dumped in a ravine in Dalaguete town two years ago. — Freeman News Service