CMFR/PHILIPPINES -The media are demanding justice for the victims of the November 23 Maguindanao massacre in which 31 of the 57 killed were journalists. But in the celebrated Marlene Esperat case, an appellate court in the Philippines granted last 3 December 2009 the motion for issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction filed by the alleged masterminds in the killing of this Sultan Kudarat journalist. Sultan Kudarat is a province approximately 968 kms south of Manila.

A preliminary injunction, according to Rule 58 of the Rules of Court, is “an order granted at any stage of an action prior to the final judgment, requiring a person to refrain from a particular act.”

In a resolution by Associate Justice Elihu A. Ybañez, the Twenty-First Division of the Court of Appeals of Cagayan de Oro City stopped the implementation of the 21 October 2008 arrest warrant issued by Tacurong City Regional Trial Court (RTC) judge Milanio Guerrero against alleged masterminds Osmeña Montañer and Estrella Sabay.

The court also “enjoin(ed) respondents from further proceeding with Criminal Case No. 3064 or under the same Information from which petitioners were charged for Murder or from acting on any matter raised relative thereto, until this Petition for Certiorari and Prohibition is finally resolved unless sooner revoked.” (emphasis by author)

The appellate court said in its four-page resolution that the Office of the Solicitor General failed to comment on the earlier Petition for Certiorari and Prohibition filed by the alleged masterminds last 21 May 2009. The alleged masterminds filed a Petition for Certiorari and Prohibition asking the appellate court to declare the denial of their Motion for Reconsideration for the dismissal of the murder case as grave abuse of discretion on the part of Judge Guerrero. (Please see Judge denies motion for reconsideration by alleged masterminds)

The alleged masterminds filed through their counsel Cesar Jimenea Jr. the “Extremely URGENT Motion for the Issuance of the Writ of Preliminary Injunction” last 16 November 2009, underscoring its “extreme urgency” as the alleged masterminds “have not been reporting to work for more than a year now” because of the arrest warrant and “are (now) in danger of being dismissed” from the Region XII office of the Department of Agriculture (DA).

The respondents including the Solicitor General were given ten days from the receipt of the resolution to file their appropriate comments.

Esperat was killed on 24 March 2005 in front of her children in their home in Tacurong City, Sultan Kudarat province. The gunman and his accomplice pled guilty and were sentenced in October 2006. More than two years later, the prosecutors filed murder charges against Montañer and Sabay who allegedly masterminded the killing to retaliate for Esperat’s exposes of corruption in DA Region XII.