Belo case junked because of weak evidence–lawyer
ROXAS CITY – Napoleon Oducado, then city legal officer of former Mayor Vicente Bermejo, refuted the claim that the case against Paul Jude Belo for illegal logging in 2005 was dismissed because of the absence of the seized hotlogs.
He said the failure of the prosecution to prove that the accused cut trees in a public land was the reason for the dismissal.
Oducado, in a radio interview, said the prosecution did not present reliable surveyor to show the delineation between Belo’s private lot and the city government owned lot.
He said the hotlogs need not be presented in court as physical evidence while the case was in trial.
Last Friday, Mayor Angel Alan Celino filed a case against Bermejo, Liga ng mga Barangay President Wilson Acervo, Olutayan Brgy. Capt. Manuel Aninang and City General Services Office Head Glenn Amane before the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas for allegedly taking the hot lumber for their personal use.
Based on the complaint filed by Celino, the four officials “willfully, unlawfully, feloniously and fraudulently misappropriated, embezzled and took away from the City General Services Office the lumber which they appropriated and converted to their personal use.”
The filing of the case was based on the recommendations of the City Council committee on good government, chaired by Councilor Julius Abela.
The committee report stated that the P76,862-worth lumber were confiscated by the city government from a watershed in Sitio Catao, Brgy. Cudian in Ivisan town on Feb. 15, 2005.
The lumber composed of narra and mahogany were allegedly cut by Belo without the permission from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Belo was charged for illegal logging but the case was dismissed.
Abela had blamed Bermejo and the three other officals for taking the hotlogs that he said led to the dismissal of the case against Belo because of the city government’s failure to present evidence in court.*