Suspects in Esperat killing evade arrest - NUJP

Two regional agriculture officials accused of masterminding the brutal murder of journalist Marlene Esperat have apparently evaded arrest.

Reports have quoted Cotabato City police director, Sr. Supt. Willie Dangane that Department of Agriculture Region 12 finance director Osmeña Montañer and accountant Estrella Sabay could have fled the city after learning they would be served warrants of arrest.

“They are no longer here in the City,” Dangane said.

The two have been tagged as the brains behind the murder of Esperat, columnist of a weekly paper in Tacurong City, Sultan Kudarat, who was gunned down by three men as she was having dinner with her family in March 2005.

Last October 21, Judge Melanio Guerrero of the Regional Trial Court in Tacurong City issued a new warrant for the arrest of Montañer and Sabay after the case was transferred there from Cebu City.

Cebu City RTC judge Simeon Dumdum approved last September 28 the petition for the withdrawal of charges filed to allow the murder case to be heard before the Tacurong City RTC. The transfer came after the Court of Appeals in Cebu issued a preliminary injunction preventing the serving of the arrest warrants issued earlier by the Cebu court on February 4, 2008.

Before she was killed, Esperat had exposed alleged corruption in the agriculture department’s Region 12 office.

The three gunmen Gerry Cabagay, Randy Grecia and Estanislao Bismanos have been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. No mastermind has ever been successfully prosecuted in any of the 96 killings of journalist since 1986.http://www.asianpress.net/2008/10/30/suspects-in-esperat-killing-evade-arrest-nujp)

Court orders arrest of alleged masterminds in killing of journalist

PHILIPPINES (CMFR / Oct. 24, 2008) – A local court in Sultan Kudarat has ordered the arrest of the alleged masterminds in the 2005 killing of a journalist a day after murder charges were filed against them. Sultan Kudarat is approximately 968 kms from Manila.

Judge Melanio S. Guerrero of the Tacurong City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 20 issued on 21 October 2008 warrants of arrest against Osmeña Montañer and Estrella Sabay, the alleged masterminds in the killing of journalist Marlene Esperat. Murder charges were filed against them on 20 October 2008.

However, Montaner and Sabay filed on 21 October 2008 a motion to quash the Information before the Tacurong City RTC Branch 20. Nena Santos, private counsel in the case, said the local court will hear the motion on 27 October 2008.

Esperat was killed on 24 March 2005 inside her home in Sultan Kudarat. She was known for her exposes on the alleged corrupt activities in the regional office of the Department of Agriculture where Montañer and Sabay work as finance officer and regional accountant, respectively.

On 4 February 2008, the Cebu City RTC Branch 7 of Judge Simeon Dumdum had issued warrants of arrest against Montañer and Sabay. But a preliminary injunction issued by the Cebu City Court of Appeals on 14 May 2008 prevented the serving of the warrants of arrest and Judge Dumdum from hearing the case. Montañer and Sabay filed the petition for the issuance of a preliminary injunction before the appellate court on 6 March 2008, arguing that the Cebu City RTC had no jurisdiction over the case filed against them.

The Cebu City Court of Appeals agreed with the Office of the Solicitor General’s opinion that the case against Montañer and Sabay should be filed at Tacurong City where the murder happened.
On 28 September 2008, Judge Dumdum approved the petition for the withdrawal of charges at the Cebu City RTC filed by the prosecutors in preparation for the filing of a murder case against the alleged masterminds before the Tacurong City RTC.

Since President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo came to power in 2001, 37 journalists have been killed in the line of duty—almost half the total number of journalists killed in the line of duty since 1986.

Out of the 37 cases, only the assassins and their accomplices in two cases—the 2005 killing of Esperat and the 2002 killing of Edgar Damalerio—have been convicted. No mastermind in any of the cases has been successfully prosecuted.(http://www.cmfr-phil.org/2008/10/22/court-orders-arrest-of-alleged-masterminds-in-killing-of-journalist)

CPJ welcomes new charges in 2005 murder of Filipino journalist

The Committee to Protect Journalists is heartened to learn that murder charges were filed in the 2005 slaying of investigative reporter Marlene Garcia-Esperat in the Philippines.

Osmeña Montañer and Estrella Sabay have been charged Monday as the alleged masterminds behind the murder. Montañer and Sabay were Mindano Department of Agriculture officials who Garcia-Esperat had accused of siphoning off money from fertilizer purchases.

Charges against the two men had previously been dismissed in 2005. The Tacurong City Regional Trial Court, in which the charges were brought today, has yet to issue arrest warrants for the men, according to the Center for Media Freedom and responsibility, a local media rights group.

“We commend Philippine prosecutors, who have taken another step forward in finally bringing about justice in the cold-blooded murder of Marlene Garcia-Esperat,” said Bob Dietz, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “It is now up to the courts and prosecutors to press for a full resolution on this brave journalist’s murder.”

In March 2005, a gunman walked into Garcia-Esperat’s house in the city of Tacurong in Mindanao, the southernmost main Island of the Philippines. The gunman killed her in front of her family. Garcia-Esperat died instantly from the single bullet wound to her head. The gunman and his accomplice escaped from the scene on a motorcycle.

An anti-graft columnist for newspaper the Midland Review on Mindanao, Garcia-Esperat, 45, had been under police protection as result of recent death threats. According to local news reports, she let her two guards leave early for the Easter holidays before the killing.

Estanislao Bismanos, Gerry Cabayag, and Randy Grecia—the gunman, lookout, and co-conspirator—were given life sentences in October 2006 in a court in Cebu in the central Philippines, where the murder investigation had been moved at one point to ensure a fair trial and to protect witnesses. (CPJ)

Agri Finance Chief Escapes Death In South RP

COTABATO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Nov. 16, 2007) - Police mounted a massive search Friday for two men who tried to kill an agriculture official in the southern Philippines, police and government media said.

One of the men lobbed a grenade on a car carrying Osmeña Montanier, finance chief of the Department of Agriculture in Mindanao. The grenade failed to explode, police said.

Police said Montanier was on his way to office in Cotabato City at around 1.30 p.m. when one of two men on motorcycle tossed the grenade into the car, but it hit the tire and rolled to the pavement.

No group claimed responsibility for the failed assassination. Cotabato City is one of the most dangerous places in Mindanao where extra-judicial killings were not uncommon.

Cotabato City has been previously attacked and police and military authorities blamed Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiya terrorists and rebels for the spate of bombings that left dozens of people dead over the past years. Aside from terrorists and rebels, extortion syndicates also operate in Cotabato City, once tagged by the United States as a "doormat" of terrorists in the southern Philippines.

The tag caused the suspension of a P54-million road project funded by the US Agency for International Development, saying, terrorist and rebel groups might use the project for their illegal activities.

Several foreigners with alleged links to al-Qaeda terror network had been arrested in Cotabato City in the past. (Mindanao Examiner)