Acquitted, but not yet free

Rural Missionaries lay co-worker Joel Yagao is acquitted from three trumped-up charges, but is still not free. The court decision released on January 20 by Branch 43 of the 10th Judicial Region acquitted Yagao, together with two other accused individuals, Modesto Bernas and Reynaldo Gundaya, from two murder cases and one frustrated murder. Not enough evidence was presented to convict the three. All the cases were connected to the ambush of Mayor Ruthie Guingona at Barangay Capitulagan, Gingoog City on April 20, 2013, owned up by the New People’s Army (NPA). Bernas and Gundaya are members of farmers’ associations while Yagao is a community worker of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines – Northern Mindanao Sub-Region (RMP-NMR). “For lack of a concrete person they could arrest for the ambush, they turned on civilian community workers,” said Sr. Ma. Famita Somogod, MSM, the coordinator of RMP-NMR. “That is how incompetent our law enforcers are. They go after the defenseless because they are incompetent against those who have arms to fight them.” Yagao is still facing charges of other murder cases, this time from the municipality of Claveria. Bernas, the day right after he was acquitted of the Gingoog cases, was charged with a new one involving an encounter between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the NPA in Alagatan, Gingoog City in July 2015. But at that time, Bernas was already in jail. “They know that the people they accused were innocent,” said Sister Famita. “They just wanted to rip them away from their families so that they would be cowered and stop from working among poor communities.” For reference: Sr. Ma. Famita N. Somgod, MSM Coordinator, RMP-NMR Inc E: info@rmp-nmr.org