BACOLOD CITY–The Regional Trial Court (RTC) here dismissed the petition for writ of habeas corpus filed by arrested protesters from the local transport groups against two officials of Bacolod City Police Office (BCPO).
Lt. Col. Joery Puerto, chief of the City Investigation and Detection Management Unit, one of the respondents, together with Maj. Eugene Tolentino, commander of Police Station 2, confirmed the development on Friday.
"They wanted to make it appear that their arrest was illegal. The court dismissed the petition because the arrest of the six of them had basis and was legal," Puerto said in an interview.
As a legal proceeding, the writ of habeas corpus allows a detained person to challenge the legality of their detention.
Legal counsels Rey Gorgonio and Lydio Apawan Jr. filed the petition on behalf of their clients Lilian Sembrano, Rudy Catedral, Shalimar Saleut, Rodolfo Gardose, Eric Bindoy, and Melchor Umangayon, arrested during a protest rally in front of a hotel along Lacson St. on Wednesday.
In the decision, RTC Branch 79 Presiding Judge Ferdinand Elbert Jomilla noted that the counsels did not show up during the hearing of the petition.
He added that there is no proof that respondents Tolentino and Puerto have been furnished with a copy of the petition.
"More so, the present petition suffers an infirmity considering that the petitioner and his counsel/s are not in court to argue their case despite its alleged urgency," the judge said.
Also, “there is no proof presented by the petitioner, or in the petition, that six persons were actually detained, as of this moment,” he further noted.
"Wherefore, the Court denies the relief prayed for by the petitioner, and this petition is hereby ordered dismissed," Jomilla said in the decision.
Sembrano, Catedral, Saleut, Gardose, and Bindoy, who were charged by the police for disobedience to an agent of a person in authority before the City Prosecutor's Office, were subjected to an inquest and were released from the custodial facility of Police Station 2 after posting bail Wednesday night.
Umangayon was separately charged with direct assault upon an agent of a person in authority after he was identified as the one who hurled stones that injured two police officers.
The group, which has been leading protests against the Public Transportation Modernization Program (PTMP) in the city, attempted to enter the L’ Fisher Hotel, where the private group-organized Visayas PTMP Summit and the Philippine Commercial Vehicle Show was held. (PNA)
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