DOJ asks Pasay court to make ex-poll exec into state witness

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has formally moved to discharge a former Mindanao election supervisor from the electoral sabotage case filed with a Pasay City court in connection with the 2007 midterm elections.

 

Likewise, the DOJ asked Judge Jesus Mupas of the Regional Trial Court Branch 112 to turn lawyer Yogie Martirizar into a state witness, according to a one-page motion filed last Wednesday, a copy of which the media obtained on Friday.

 

The motion was signed by Assistant State Prosecutor Mari Elvira Herrera, Senior Asst. City Prosecutor Orlando Mariano and Prosecution Atty. Mark Roland Estepa.

 

Martirizar was poll supervisor in North Cotabato during the 2007 elections who identified former Elections chairman Benjamin Abalos as instructing her to rig poll results in her area to ensure the victory of the administration's senatorial candidates at the time.

 

Abalos and former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo are currently facing electoral sabotage charges for the said poll fraud in 2007. 

 

Abalos is detained at the Southern Police District headquarters in Pasay City while Mrs. Arroyo is under hospital arrest at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City.

 

The DOJ prosecutors insisted that based on testimony she made in her affidavit dated September 6 last year, Martirizar could be considered to be "not the most guilty," a pre-requisite for witness conversion.

 

The DOJ further said that since Martirizar had already been admitted to the Witness Protection Program, she should automatically be removed from the charge sheet.

 

The prosecutors used as basis Section 12 of Republic Act 6981 or the "Witness Protection, Security and Benefit Act," which gives a person immunity from criminal prosecution.

 

In early April, Abalos' son and Mandaluyong Mayor Benhur Abalos  earlier claimed there was a move within the Comelec to drop the charges against Martirizar and another accused, Lilian Suan Radam, former poll supervisor in South Cotabato.

 

The Abalos camp said the DOJ was "pressuring" the Comelec, which lodged the case with the Pasay court, to move for the conversion of Radam and Martirizar into state witness.

 

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima denied the allegation, but insisted the need to turn the two forrmer poll supervisors into witnesses.

 

"Para sa amin imperative na gawin as state witness ang dalawa para tunay na malakas ang kaso versus the former chair," De Lima had said.

 

"Minsan may mga kaso na mahirap makuha ang conviction sa mga big fish. Walang ibang evidence kung hindi ang co-accused. Kaya it's a practical necessity to be able to secure a conviction," she added. — RSJ, GMA News