POLICE Regional Office (PRO) 7 Director Ager Ontog wants Senior Supt. Patrocinio Commendador to be the officer-in-charge of the Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO).
This, as lawyer Salvador Solima said reports on the photos taken during the thanksgiving dinner of Sven Erik Berger and Karen Esdrelon, allegedly showing Prosecutor Joseph Bercilles joining the couple, are just “intrigues.”
Renante Pique’s lawyer Roque Amante filed a complaint against Bercilles at the Office of the Ombudsman yesterday.
The CPPO arrested and filed a complaint for kidnapping with homicide against Berger and Esdrelon, after three children identified the couple as the ones they saw with Ellah Joy Pique in Minglanilla last Feb. 8.
The complaint was dropped after the prosecutors found no basis to send the case to court for trial.
The man described as Bercilles in the photos circulated in Facebook, a social networking site, appeared to be lawyer Glenn Villariza, Solima’s co-counsel.
Ontog said he submitted a letter to Camp Crame last Monday endorsing Comendador, chief of the Regional Investigation and Detection Management Division (RIDMD).
He told reporters yesterday he needs Senior Supt. Louie Oppus to focus on his job as a deputy director for operations.
Oppus was appointed as CPPO’s officer-in-charge by Camp Crame last Feb. 25, three days after Senior Supt. Erson Digal resigned as CPPO director.
In an earlier report, Digal resigned after Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia told him she lost trust in him. The governor was displeased that Digal allegedly withheld information from her about the Pique case.
Pique, 6, disappeared last Feb. 8 from her school in Calajo-an, Minglanilla, Cebu. Her body was found the next day at the foot of a cliff in the southern Cebu town of Barili.
Berger and Esdrelon were able to present certifications that they were nowhere near Minglanilla on Feb. 8. The National Bureau of Investigation also got photos from security cameras at the Waterfront Hotel and Casino in Cebu City, showing the couple in the hotel premises around the time Pique disappeared.
The Office of the Provincial Prosecutor dismissed the case against Berger and Esdrelon last Feb. 28.
Meanwhile, Ontog said the task force that was created to investigate Ellah Joy’s death has new developments after they checked different places in Cebu.
To bring justice to Pique’s family, Ontog said he did not give the task force a deadline when to finish their investigation.
“We should be very thorough in our investigation,” he said in Tagalog.
Villariza laughed off the issue on him joining the thanksgiving dinner of Berger and Esdrelon.
“Hastang buanga. Nagpataka na man lang na siya (That’s crazy. He is being indiscriminate),” Villariza said in an interview last night on the complaint lodged against Bercilles by Pique and his lawyer.
“Wrong person again. Hinuon, parehas man ming mistisohon” (On second thought, we both look like mestizos),” Villariza joked, referring to Berciles and himself.
He said no one from the Office of the Cebu Provincial Prosecutor was at the thanksgiving dinner that, he said, was attended only by members of the Esdrelon family and friends of Karen.
Bercilles could not be reached for comment. But lawyer Marlon Atillo, who was reportedly charged together with him at the anti-graft office, also laughed the report off.
Bercilles approved the dismissal of the complaint against Berger and Esdrelon for the abduction and murder of Ellah Joy. The dismissal, in turn, was recommended by inquest prosecutors Marvin dela Peña and Marlon Atillo, based on evidence that the couple were somewhere else that time.
“Wala mi diha. Ambot diin na nila kuhaa. Wala gani ko kahibalo anang celebration (We were not there. I don’t know where they got their information. I didn’t even know there was a celebration),” Atillo said in a separate interview.
He described the report as a “plain nuisance suit.”
“If they are hoping that this would somehow change our resolution, that’s not the proper remedy. Let them file a motion for reconsideration or a petition for review,” he said.
He said, though, he does not blame Pique and that he might have received “improper advice from his lawyer.”
Still, Atillo said they will wait for advice from the anti-graft office and find out if they would be required to submit a formal answer.
He said neither he nor Berciles has a copy of the complaint.
Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on March 05, 2011.
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