Lawyer who filed charges vs 8 cops provided security

KORONADAL CITY — The anti-terrorist Joint Task Force in nearby General Santos City has deployed some of its highly trained personnel to provide security to a woman lawyer who has received threats to her life after she filed criminal and administrative charges against a Central Mindanao police official and seven others.

Col. Medardo Geslani, the task force commander, said he assigned some of his men to secure lawyer Cynthia Corazon Roxas based on her request.

The request was coursed through retired Army Col. Rudy Guligado, Geslani’s fellow alumnus of the Philippine Military Academy.

Roxas is the legal counsel of Ares Alvarez Mato, who was arrested by the Regional Intelligence Office last March 16 in front of the provincial Capitol of South Cotabato for allegedly plotting to kill Senior Superintendent Getulio Napeñas, South Cotabato police director.

Roxas has questioned Mato’s arrest, saying there was no arrest warrant and that the charges against her client were merely "fabricated" to justify his apprehension.

She also questioned the credibility of the affidavit of confession, which Mato had signed.

In the affidavit, Mato confessed that he was the one who gunned down the election supervisor of Bauang, La Union and tagged La Union second district Rep. Tomas Dumpit Sr. and his son, Butch, as the alleged masterminds.

In a chance interview here yesterday, Roxas confirmed the threats to her life, saying she received a call last Tuesday from an unidentified caller after she filed criminal charges against eight members of the Regional Intelligence Office with the General Santos City prosecutor’s office.

The respondents in the criminal case are Superintendent Elmidio Tagra, Senior Inspector Cesario Dakuling Jr., SPO1s Ernesto Valencia, Romeo Lavinia and Rene Batadlan, and PO1s Nicanor Castillon, Carlos Cama—cho and Sotero Tauro.

She quoted the man, with a Cebuano accent, as telling her to just return to Manila "dahil hindi ko daw alam kung sino ang binabangga ko (because I don’t know whom I’m taking on)."

Roxas talked with The STAR after the hearing of her petition for a writ of habeas corpus against Tagra and his men at the sala of Judge Oscar Dinopol of Regional Trial Court Branch 24.