(UPDATED as of 2:40 p.m.) An Olongapo Regional Trial Court judge has dismissed the charges of violating the Anti-Terrorism Law (ATL) against Aetas Japer Gurung and Junior Ramos.
Gurung and Ramos were accused of commiting terrorism, a violation of Section 4 of the ATL, after they were caught by the military fleeing their ancestral lands in San Marcelino, Zambales due to the bombing operations of the Armed Forces of the Philippines against the New People’s Army.
They are the first publicly-known individuals charged with the controversial law when they were arrested on August 21, 2020.
In junking the case against the Aetas, the court held that the military’s testimonies regarding Gurung and Ramos’s presence at the “crime scene” had inconsistencies. Soldiers Fritz Entoma and Ian Dominic Oran had purportedly saw the two suspects during a gunfight.
“After a careful examination of the records, the Court holds that the prosecution failed to discharge the burden of proving the identities of the accused as the perpetrators of the crime violating Section 4 of [the ATL],” read part of the court order dated July 15 penned by Judge Melani Tadili. “Thus, the case for violating this law against the accused must be dismissed.”
Because of the failure to establish that Gurung and Ramos committed the crime, their warrantless arrest was voided. The court also declared as inadmissible the supposed shotgun, ammunition, and grenade recovered from them. This effectively dismissed the charge of illegal possession of firearms and explosives against the two.
In a press conference held this morning, Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) Chief Persida Acosta announced Gurung and Ramos’s acquittal.
“Sa ngayon po ay pinuntahan na ng lawyer natin sa Olongapo City jail para po palayain sa bisa ng kautusan ng hukuman,” Acosta said on her press conference which also tackled an immigration case and the Dengvaxia probe.
Acosta also presented Gurung and Ramos to the press conference via Zoom from their jail facility. The two expressed their gratitude to PAO lawyers and the judge.
The PAO had taken up the Aetas’ case after Solicitor General Jose Calida announced during a Supreme Court oral argument that Gurung and Ramos backed out of joining the petitioners challenging the ATL. They were initially represented by lawyers from the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers.
“That they (Gurung and Jamos) have to undergo horrible and unimaginable torture—which remains undisputed to this day—and made pawns by the very state that put them in jail in the first place,” said NUPL President Edre Olalia in a statement, Monday afternoon.
“[The state’s] self-righteous agents even brazenly committed possibly unethical conduct to snatch them away from their original counsel to defuse the focus on the patent injustice on them, is an indelible mark that is irreparable.” ●
