Deploring the release of former Palawan Gov. Joel Reyes, who, along with his brother, Mario, was accused of masterminding the 2011 killing of environmentalist and journalist Gerry Ortega, environmental group Kalikasan-PNE said the “questionable” Court of Appeals (CA) decision “sets the tone” for more emboldened attacks against environmental defenders in the country.
“We in the Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment [Kalikasan PNE] express our utmost disgust over the Court of Appeals’s release of former Palawan Gov. Joel Reyes, the mastermind in the murder of environmentalist and journalist Dr. Gerry Ortega. The CA’s questionable decision sets the tone for more emboldened killings of environmental defenders and the unfettered throughout 2018,” the group said in a news statement.
Ortega was killed around 10:30 a.m. on January 24, 2001, while checking out clothes at a clothes thrift shop in Barangay San Pedro in Puerto Princesa City, Palawan.
Reports said he had just finished broadcasting on his morning show Ramatak for a local radio station, dwAR-FM and was supposed to prepare for a scheduled journey to Manila when he decided to stop by to check for new arrivals in the ukay ukay store. He was shot at the back of the head by a lone gunman.
After several arrests, the name of the former Palawan governor and his brother, Mario Reyes, a former mayor of Coron, Palawan, cropped up as the alleged masterminds.
To recall, on March 21, 2016, during the court trial, Reyes’s bodyguard Rodolfo Edrad Jr., alias Bumar, admitted he hired the killers, and identified the brothers as the masterminds.
He testified that his employer, the then governor and his brother, paid him P500,000.
Those arrested by police for having a part in the murder include the alleged shooter, Marlon Recamata, who confessed to the crime at the Puerto Princesa Police Station. Recamata, who was arrested by police after a brief chase after shooting Ortega, also implicated three others in his statements, namely, Rodolfo O. Edrad Jr., Dennis C. Aranas and Armando R. Noel.
Recamata pleaded guilty to murder charges on February 11, 2011, and was sentenced to life in prison.
A second suspect, Percival Lecias, was invited for questioning by the Puerto Princesa – National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on January 25, 2011, while another suspect, Dennis Aranas, was arrested in Coron, Palawan, on January 28, 2011. He also confessed to the crime at the Puerto Princesa Police Office.
Edrad Jr. surrendered to Puerto Princesa Mayor Edward Hagedorn in Lucena, Quezon on February 5, 2011. Edrad was later found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
Another suspect, Armando Noel surrendered to the NBI at their Taft Avenue headquarters on February 10, 2011. Both Edrad and Noel confessed to the crime before the NBI.
Another suspect, Edwin Arandia gave himself up on February 27, 2011 to Fr. Robert Reyes who accompanied him to the NBI.
The group said Reyes’ release reinforces the Philippines’ position as Asia’s deadliest country for land and environmental defenders.
The Ortega murder case is among the few environmental defender cases that made the most progress up to the point where CA exonerated Joel Reyes.
“We have monitored no less than 158 environment-related killings since 2001, none of which has been sufficiently resolved to date. 16 victims hailed from Palawan for having protected the last ecological frontier’s unparalleled old-growth forests and other natural wonders from big mines and other destructive projects,” the group lamented.
“With the seventh death anniversary of Doc Gerry approaching this January 24, we are one with the Ortega family and the entire environmental movement in demanding nothing short of justice and the conviction and imprisonment of the clear perpetrators. We demand the Duterte [administration] to dispel the bloody climate of impunity by stopping its bloody campaigns of killings and militarization,” the group said.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) likewise expressed dismay with the CA ruling.
Though we have yet to obtain a copy of the decision, news report quotes Reyes’ lawyers as saying the appellate court has prohibited the Palawan Regional Trial Court Branch 52 from proceeding with the case against the former governor.
“We do note that avenues remain for Doc Gerry’s family, friends and colleagues to seek to right this grievous wrong and we will continue to stand with them and support the continued struggle for justice and free expression. We cannot, we will not, stand idly by and allow this to be another entry in the long and painful history of impunity in this country,” the NUJP said.