A MANILA court has acquitted human rights activist Reina Mae Nasino, who lost her three-month-old daughter while in detention, and two of her companions in the illegal possession of firearms and explosives case filed against them due to insufficiency of evidence.
In a resolution promulgated on July 17, Manila RTC Branch 47 Presiding Judge John Benedict Medina said the prosecution failed to prove the guilt beyond reasonable doubt of Nasino and her co-accused, Ram Carlo Bautista and Alma Moran.
In granting the demurrer to evidence (essentially a motion to junk the case due to lack of evidence) of the accused, the court noted the conflicting testimonies of the prosecution’s witnesses.
“The Court finds that the unmistakable conflicting testimonies of the prosecution witnesses generate serious doubt as to whether the firearms, ammunition, and explosives were really found in the rooms of the accused as they were not identified with sufficient particularity,” the resolution said.
“The constitutional presumption of innocence of the accused has not been demolished for the failure of the prosecution in proving the guilt of the illegal possession of firearms, ammunition, and explosives beyond a reasonable doubt,” it added.
The court stressed that the inconsistencies of the prosecution’s witnesses were so striking that they cannot be ignored or brushed aside.
“They are contradictions that not only undermine all efforts of the prosecution to reconstruct the evidence at hand, but altogether erode the evidentiary value of the prosecution’s evidence,” the court said.
Police claimed they were supporters of the communist New People’s Army, a charge the activists and their families denied.
The court said the prosecution witnesses failed to identify in open court the firearms allegedly recovered from the possession of Nasino and her co-accused.
In September last year, the Court of Appeals voided the search warrants issued by controversial Quezon City Executive Judge Cecilyn Burgos-Villavert that was used by the police to arrest Nasino and her fellow activists.
Progressive and human rights groups earlier called the attention of the Supreme Court to Burgos-Villavert’s issuance of search warrants that led to the arrests of many of their members.
In 2021, a Mandaluyong court also cleared activists Lady Ann Salem and Rodrigo Esparago of charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives, ruling that the search warrant issued by Burgos-Villavert and used by the police was also void.
She also issued the search warrants in 2019 used by the police to arrest activists in Bacolod City.
SC rules allow the executive judges of Manila and Quezon City to issue search warrants outside of their jurisdictions.
Nasino was pregnant at the time of her arrest and gave birth while in detention at the Manila City Jail.
