Judge bars Baguio exec as counsel for activists in terror case
BAGUIO CITY—A human rights lawyer has been disqualified from representing four Cordillera activists who have gone to a court here to challenge their 2023 designation as terrorists “without due process.”
Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Hilario Belmes of Branch 78 removed Baguio Councilor Jose Molintas as counsel for the activists saying his representation violated a rule that bars elected officials from litigating cases against the government. Molintas represents Sarah Abellon-Alikes, Jennifer Awingan-Taggaoa, Stephen Tauli and Windel Bolinget, chair of the Baguio-based indigenous rights advocate Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA).
Molintas’ exclusion was the latest setback to the activists’ petition for certiorari (a judicial review) and inhibition against the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC), represented by Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, for issuing ATC Resolution No. 41 in July 2023 without their knowledge, and against the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC), represented by Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Eli Remolona Jr., which froze their assets through AMLC Resolution No. TF-67.
The councilor’s removal is directed by a Feb. 7 RTC order, which addressed a petition by the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG). It took effect before the March 20 resumption of the ATC and AMLC trial that was originally overseen by Judge Cecilia Corazon Dulay-Archog of Baguio RTC Branch 7.
The Supreme Court had directed the Court of Appeals to hear all grievances regarding ATC decisions, but it allowed the Baguio case to continue at the start of 2024.
However, Dulay-Archog recused herself after Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra and 16 associate solicitors accused her of displaying bias, which she denied in her Oct. 31 decision to inhibit from the case.
Belmes was assigned in November last year to take over the trial which will restart with the presentation of the government’s defense. The activists concluded their presentation of evidence on Sept. 23 last year.
Provision ‘clear’
Saying Molintas’ task to represent the activists in the trial “can be interpreted as noble,” Belmes in his Feb. 7 decision said the Baguio councilor was still bound by Title III, Section 90 of Republic Act No. 7160 (Local Government Code). This provision states that “‘sanggunian’ (council) members who are also members of the Bar shall not appear as counsel before any court in any civil case wherein a local government unit or any office, agency or instrumentality of the government is the adverse party.”
Molintas had argued that the provision was not an “absolute restriction,” and that his participation had not been questioned by government lawyer Victor Corpuz Attitiw, a member of the OSG team and a Baguio resident, when the trial began.
But Belmes said the Local Government Code provision was “clear and free from any doubt or ambiguity,” and must be applied against Molintas regardless of his “advocacy [to] enforcing and protecting constitutional rights.”
The judge said 16 other lawyers, among them National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers president Ephraim Cortez, could continue to represent the four activists after Molintas’ disqualification.
Molintas continues to represent Abellon-Alikes, who faces a separate terror financing charge that was filed in January. A court in Urdaneta City, Pangasinan, is hearing the government complaint that accuses Abellon-Alikes of allegedly paying for the accommodations of New People’s Army rebels who supposedly burned vehicles of a mining company during a robbery in 2017. She was earlier accused of committing those crimes, but was eventually cleared.
