2 PSHS students face frustrated murder raps over poisoning

Two students of the Philippine Science High School (PSHS), the premier state secondary school, have been charged with frustrated murder for allegedly poisoning another student, who then suffered from acute renal failure. Quezon City assistant city prosecutor Ferdinand Baylon said on Wednesday that he was convinced that last February 14, the two male students, both 16 years old, conspired to put mercury nitrate into the water jug of a female student but from which another girl drank. The second girl immediately felt pain and a burning sensation at the back of her mouth and down her throat. She had to undergo dialysis treatment after the poisoning. GMANews.TV is withholding the names of the students involved in the incident because they are minors. In his resolution, Baylon said he believed that there was intent on the part of the accused because one of the respondents said that they already had the notion of using a chemical substance such as mercury nitrate in the early part of February. "The respondents here are both minors and scholars of the PSHS. These facts, however, do not make them criminally exempt from the results of their criminal acts. On the contrary, being bright students with above average intellect, it cannot be argued that they did not know that mercury nitrate is deadly poison," Baylon added in his resolution. The two male PSHS students were charged before Quezon City regional trial court (RTC) branch 102. Records showed that the incident took place in the afternoon of February 14 while the respondents and the students were taking their recess. The victim was rushed to the nearby Philippine Children’s Medical Center before she was transferred to the National Kidney and Transplant Institute. She was diagnosed with acute renal failure due to toxic substance ingestion. Laboratory tests showed that the water jug from which the victim drank contained mercury nitrate. The two accused students have denied the allegations, pointing to each other as the one who poured the toxic substance into the water jug. Meanwhile, one of the respondents sought for the dismissal of his case since the investigating prosecutor erred in finding that the statements of the witnesses positively point to him as the one who actually poured the contents of a plastic bottle into the water jug. In his motion for reconsideration, the respondent also claimed that the investigating prosecutor erred in concluding that he acted in concert with his co-respondent in pouring a poisonous substance into the water jug. - GMANews.TV