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Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo walked out of the Manila
Police District jail Tuesday after the Supreme Court ordered his
release on a P100,000 bail.
Ocampo was arrested earlier this
month. He had briefly gone into hiding after police named him,
Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison and CPP
political wing leader Luis Jalandoni as among dozens of communist
rebel leaders wanted for murder.
They were indicted on 15 counts
for murder allegedly committed during a purge of suspected “spies
and counterrevolutionaries” within the ranks of the CPP and its
armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), between 1985 and 1991.
Sison and Jalandoni are in
self-imposed exile in the Netherlands.
The remains of the 15 victims
were among 67 bodies exhumed by forensic investigators from the
NPA’s so-called “killing fields” on the central Philippine
island of Leyte on August 26, 2006.
The three have denied any
involvement.
More than a hundred supporters of
Ocampo cheered as he was let out of the MPD detention center.
Presidential Spokesman Ignacio
Bunye said the President accepted the Supreme Court decision,
remarking “we enforce the law as deemed necessary but always bow
to the high court.”
Justice Secretary Raul M.
Gonzalez, however, ordered prosecutors to ask a Leyte court to
continue the trial of Ocampo as the Supreme Court had not ruled on
the merits of the case.
Ocampo had earlier filed a
petition with the Supreme Court asking it to intervene in the case
and overturn the charge, saying there was no basis to arrest him.
He said he was behind bars under
the dictatorship of former strongman Ferdinand Marcos when the
killings occurred.
Ocampo had also argued that he
was granted amnesty by two previous presidents and had actually won
his seat in Congress, meaning that there was no pending case against
him.
Romeo Capulong, Ocampo’s
lawyer, said the Supreme Court would resolve the main petition after
both parties have submitted their written arguments.
Last Friday the Court heard oral
arguments from Solicitor General Agnes Devanadera and Ocampo’s
lawyers on the lawmaker’s petition for a temporary restraining
order on his arrest.
The government, represented by
Devanadera, argued that Ocampo made a shortcut by filing the
petition before the Supreme Court, instead of filing a motion for
reconsideration before Judge Ephrem Abando of the Regional Trial
Court in Hilongos, Leyte.
Ocampo said he would resume his
campaign “and bring my party to victory in the May 14
elections.”
Bayan Muna led all accredited
party-list in recent surveys for the May 14 elections. Bayan Muna is
seeking for a third straight win in the party-list elections.
Another Ocampo lawyer, Neri
Colmenares, said the release of the congressman serves as a gift for
his birthday on Saturday.
--Jomar Canlas, ABS-CBN
Interactive and AFP
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