Republic of the Philippines - Campaign

APPELLANTS’ BRIEF
People of the Philippines vs. Fortuna, et. al.
S. C. G. R. No. 141660-64
rights of persons arrested, detained or under custodial investigation (RA 7438, Sec. 4-a &
b), and violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, RA 3019, Sec. 3-a & e).
But since then, September 1996, up to the present, October 2003, or seven years,
the Abadilla murder suspects’ complaints for various human rights violations or the
corresponding criminal charges have remained pending on preliminary investigation in
the DOJ, without it filing the appropriate criminal actions in court. In the meantime, on
July/August 1999, or in three years, five of them (thus “Abadilla 5”) were convicted and
sentenced to death in the criminal case at bar. One wonders what happened to the
constitutional guarantees not only of speedy disposition of cases under the Constitution’s
Art. III, Sec. 16 but also the more fundamental equal protection of the law under the
Constitution’s Art. III, Sec. 1.
It was this long delay in the termination of the preliminary investigation of the
Abadilla murder suspects’ complaints for torture and other human rights violations
which, among others, became the subject in October 2000 of an Amnesty International
special report “The Rolando Abadilla murder inquiry – an urgent need for effective
investigation of torture” (available at the AI website “www.amnesty.org”). This matter is
not just a matter which is of public knowledge and therefore of judicial notice (Rule 129,
Sec. 2) but a matter of international public knowledge, which the Court actually took
direct judicial notice of by way of its Resolution dated 4 July 2001 referring to the NBI
for appropriate action a DOJ 1 st Indorsement dated 4 April 2001 regarding “three sacks
containing 23,619 letters from different [foreign] persons relative to their requests for a
full, independent and impartial investigation into the alleged complaint of torture suffered
by the five prisoners,” the herein “Abadilla 5.”
The AI report had this thoughtful thing to say, among others, in their and others’
regard about the death penalty and torture:
Five suspects in the Abadilla case have been sentenced
to death. While Amnesty International is unequivocally opposed
to the death penalty in every case around the world, the
organization’s concerns in the Philippines are deepened by the
fact that the suspects’ testimonies in this case mirror allegations
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