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The Supreme Court has passed on to lower courts the petition of a group of elderly and sickly political detainees, who pleaded for temporary release to avoid contracting SARS Cov2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in congested prisons and waited five months for a decision on your plea.
The higher court reached the decision six weeks ago, or on July 28.
He referred the petition of 22 political detainees to the courts of first instance that dealt with cases against inmates.
However, the Supreme Court announced the decision only on Thursday (September 10) through its public information office.
The petitioners and their lawyers have not received a copy of the decision, which is still in the administrative process.
Without explaining the six-week delay in announcing its decision, the Supreme Court said the petition “presented several complex issues that make the interplay of the applicable principles have far-reaching implications.”
The court was unanimous in treating the petition as a request for bond or acknowledgment.
But it also recognized that the petitioners did not have the right to bail since all have been charged with crimes punishable by 40 years in prison or life imprisonment.
“Therefore, in order for the petitioners to be granted bail, it is imperative to hold hearings,” said the superior court’s public information office. “These procedures are within the jurisdiction of the courts of first instance,” he said.
The Supreme Court ordered the courts of first instance “to carry out the necessary procedures and resolve the incidents immediately.”
“The Supreme Court also considered the process before closing it and ending it,” added its public information office.
When asked about the six-week lapse before the announcement, Supreme Court Chief Public Information Officer Brian Hosaka said that while the justices initially agreed that the proper place for the detainees’ petition was the first-rate courts instance, “they had different views and opinions on the outcome. “
Many judges had presented separate opinions, he said. “This just shows that the case was fraught with complex issues that had far-reaching repercussions,” Hosaka said.
The 22 petitioners included consultants from the National Democratic Front of the Philippines Vicente Ladlad, Francisco Fernández, Adelberto Silva, Rey Casambre, and Renante Gamara.
They are being detained at the Bagong Diwa Camp in the city of Taguig along with other petitioners Dionisio Almonte, Ireneo Atadero Jr., Emmanuel Bacarra, Alexander Birondo, Winona Birondo, Ferdinand Castillo, Ediesel Legaspi, Alberto Villamor, Virginia Villamor, Cleofe Lagtapon, Geann Perez and Oliver Rosales.
The other petitioners are Norberto Murillo, Reina Nasino, Dario Tomada and Oscar Belleza, who are being held in the Manila City Jail, and Lilia Bucatcat.
All are still on trial, except Bucatcat, who is serving his sentence at the Correctional Institute for Women in the city of Mandaluyong.
When the petition was filed on April 8, Nasino, 23, was pregnant. She gave birth on July 1 last. The Manla court handling her case rejected her appeal to keep her baby with her in the Manila city jail nursery for a year.
In an online press conference on June 11, Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta said a decision on the petition will be issued in a few days.
He said deliberation was delayed because the justice assigned to the case could not return to Manila from the Visayas due to the closure.
Since then, the families of the prisoners belonging to the Kapatid group have been holding regular rallies in front of the Supreme Court, the last one last Tuesday (September 8).
TSB
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