The press as judge

JEERS TO Korina Sanchez for a column in the Cebu City newspaper The Freeman in which she prejudged the guilt of Philippine Navy personnel on the ongoing Philip Pestaño case.

Last Jan. 11, the Office of the Ombudsman reversed itself and filed murder charges against 10 Navy personnel at the Sandiganbayan and ordered  their dismissal for the death of Pestaño, who was found dead in his cabin aboard the BRP Bacolod City on Sept. 27, 1995.

Reacting to the Office of the Ombudsman’s reversing itself, Sanchez wrote that she just could not believe that Pestaño killed himself which was the earlier finding. “It doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to say that this was murder. A rookie out of detective school will not miss all the facts that point to foul play!” (“True justice”, Jan. 13)

Pestaño was the only true Navy personnel on BRP Bacolod City, she wrote. “The rest were criminals in uniform and bargain-basement soldiers with cheap prices for their complicities.”

Sanchez ended with: “I just hope that those guilty get what they rightly and equally deserve. They have snuffed out the life of probably the very person who could have restored honor to the military. All because of greed, all because of stupidity. May they burn in hell for this!”