NUPL disappointed over CA injunction vs. Mary Jane Veloso testimony


By JOSEPH TRISTAN ROXAS, GMA News
The National Union of People's Lawyers (NUPL) on Friday expressed dismay on the decision of the Court of Appeals (CA) to issue an injunction on the testimony of Filipino death row inmate Mary Jane Veloso against her alleged illegal recruiters.
NUPL president Atty. Edre Olalia called the CA decision "both frustrating and ironic" because a Philippine court is barring Veloso to testify against Maria Cristina Sergio and her live-in partner Julius Lacanilao.
"We are disappointed that the taking of her material testimony is being prevented by our own courts, the Court of Appeals in particular, upon motion of the accused illegal recruiters' defense team," Olalia said in a press statement.
In an 18-page decision promulgated on December 13 last year, the Former Eleventh Division reversed the ruling of Judge Anarica Castillo-Reyes of the Sto. Domingo, Nueva Ecija Regional Trial Court that allowed Veloso to testify against Sergio and Lacanilao.
The CA said Reyes erred when she allowed the deposition of Veloso on April 27 in Yogyakarta Prison through written interrogatories, saying the inmate must be present in the Philippines for the court to admit her testimony subject to a cross examination.
The CA also sided with lawyers from the Public Attorney's Office, saying the imprisonment of Veloso in Indonesia imposes a "limitation on her mobility" to undergo a cross examination in the criminal proceedings.
Olalia denied that Veloso will violate the rights of Sergio and Lacanilao since they will be represented in Indonesia should the appellate court allow the deposition.
"After all, what we are just asking is for her to tell her story in full and with the guarantees of due process intact and in accordance with the basic rules of evidence, sans dilatory or complicated legal technicalities nor prior restraint," Olalia said.
"No fundamental right is violated if Mary Jane is allowed to answer written interrogatories as the accused through counsel will be present when her deposition is taken in Indonesia in the presence not only of the same Philippine judge hearing the case for human trafficking, illegal recruitment and swindling, but also other concerned judicial and consular officials of the Philippines and Indonesia," he added.  
Furthermore, Olalia said the court and the defense team were supplied with over 130 questions to allow them to have their own cross-interrogatories to Veloso.
Olalia urged the CA to just allow Veloso to "speak out and let her story stand on its own" on how she was tricked into transporting illegal drugs to Indonesia in 2010.
"Given the novelty of the legal situation involving two jurisdictions and her circumstances of being detained in a foreign land unable or disallowed to go home as yet, her deposition would shed light on the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," he said.
Olalia said they are coordinating with the Philippine Public Prosecutors and indirectly with the Office of the Solicitor General for their appeal to the CA decision. —NB, GMA News

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