Republic of the Philippines - Campaign

APPELLANTS’ BRIEF
People of the Philippines vs. Fortuna, et. al.
S. C. G. R. No. 141660-64
1, which is hereby incorporated and made an integral part of this appellants’ brief by
reference. The said Motion notes “The persistency and consistency of the ABB angle in
the Abadilla murder over the past six [now seven] years starting with the first claim of
responsibility up to the more recent reiterations and pieces of evidence…”
The said Motion also points out which of the proposed additional evidence on the
ABB angle are “undoubtedly newly-discovered,” i.e. after the trial court’s appealed Joint
Decision of July 30, 1999, and those which are “not necessarily newly-discovered in the
strict sense” but can be seen in a new light when co-related with other evidence even if
also not strictly newly-discovered. The best example of this in the case at bar is the
ballistics evidence (e.g. accused SPO2 Cesar Fortuna’s Exhs. 2, 3, 74 & 75 under his
Formal Offer of Evidence dated April 19, 1999) which were already part of the evidence
presented during the trial but their connection with the ABB angle was not yet seen by
and in the trial court at that time.
As for the undoubtedly newly-discovered (i.e. post-trial) evidence on the ABB
angle, the best example is object evidence: the Omega wrist watch (Exh. A[Motion])
taken from the slain Col. Abadilla by his ambushers and turned over by an ABB
personality to Fr. Roberto Reyes on 5 January 2000, as narrated in his Affidavit (Exh. A
of the abovesaid Motion for New Trial). The wrist watch, described as “Omega gold-
plated wrist watch 1377” and “De Ville Quartz” (TSN, 1/26/00, pp.23, 25-26) matches
the description of the wrist watch in the very first page of the appealed Joint Decision of
July 30, 1999 quoting the Information charging all the accused (except Augusto Santos)
for theft of the pistol, wrist watch and wallet taken from the slain Abadilla.
But when Fr. Reyes made an “Urgent Independent Motion for Leave of Court to
Present Vital Evidence” dated January 19, 2000 assisted by his own counsel, the trial
court at the hearing of this motion on January 26, 2000 issued this appealed Order of the
same date in open court denying the motion for these reasons:
…that this Motion has been filed belatedly and the
court believes that from the discussion earlier made that
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