Court frees activists tagged as rebels

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (MindaNews/22 September)-After being in jail for 7 years and six months, the six youth activists collectively known as the Mabinay 6 are now free after a Dumaguete City court acquitted them of all criminal charges Monday, September 22.
The group had been in detention following their arrest on March 3, 2018 in Mabinay town, Negros Oriental. They were accused of having engaged the military in an armed encounter and charged with illegal possession of firearms and explosives.

The so called Mabinay 6 with lawyer Karlos Ysagani Zarate after their acquittal all criminal charges Monday, September 22, in Dumagueta City. Photo courtesy of Atty. Karlos Ysagani Zarate

In setting them free, Judge Marie Rose G. Inocando-Paras of Dumaguete City’s Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 42 wrote that the arrest of the six was not valid, citing notable inconsistencies in the testimonies of the prosecution’s witnesses.
The group, all youth activists on an exposure trip with farmers, was supposedly arrested during hot pursuit operations following a five-minute gunfight which occurred at dawn of March 3, 2018 at Barangay Luyang, Mabinay town.
But the court questioned, among others, why there was no witness testimony from a resident of the barangay where the group had been staying, saying loud explosions coming from a gunfight at the dead of night would have woken residents.
The court also pointed out that none of the six– Myles Albasin, a community journalist and University of the Philippines-Cebu graduate; Randel Hermino, a Negros Oriental native; Carlo Ybañes, who grew up in an urban poor community in Cebu; and peasant organizers Joemar Indico, Joey Vailoces, and Bernard Guillen—tested positive for gun powder residue in the paraffin tests later conducted by police.
While the court noted that it may be possible for a person to fire a gun yet bear no traces of gunpowder, it was “highly improbable for all six accused to have the same negative result, unless they did not fire a gun/rifle or any kind of firearm.”
The court also noted that there was no proper handling of the supposed evidence against all the accused. The court said authorities did not bother to properly mark which firearm was supposedly confiscated from whom before these were transported to the police station, and then later to an army camp, and then later still back to the police station in Mabinay town.
“There are(sic) numerous loopholes in the evidence offered by the prosecution,” the court decision said.
In acquitting the six, the court said that it remains the burden of the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt the guilt of the all accused. According to the court, the constitutional right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty “can be overthrown only by proof beyond reasonable doubt.”

Mother and daughter Grace and Myles Albasin. Photo courtesy of Atty. Karlos Ysagani Zarate

Cagayan de Oro journalist Grace Albasin, mother of Myles Albasin, expressed joy and relief when contacted for comment.
“Myles is Free,” the elder Albasin posted on Facebook just minutes after the decision was read by the court.
After her arrest, Myles Albasin became fodder for anti-communist propaganda circulated by government, particularly by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).
The NTF-ELCAC was notorious for red-tagging activists, journalists, and human rights workers during the Duterte administration.
Myles and the entire family have had to endure years of red-tagging and ridicule, Grace said.
A community journalist and activist following in her mother’s footsteps, the then 21 years-old Myles was in Mabinay for Aninaw Productions, a Cebu-based alternative media outlet.
As a correspondent of the alternative media group, she was to report on the problems of the local farmers with water, harvest, and poverty at the time of her arrest. (JB R. Deveza/MindaNews)