In an unprecedented turn of events, a heinous crime involving former Panglao mayor Doloriech Dumaluan and three others that went through several stages of hearings leading to its dismissal, was overturned when it was reviewed by the Office of the President.  The assailed resolution cleared Dumaluan and company of the crime charged but the Office of the President reversed the dismissal for the rape with homicide charges filed against the former mayor, his brother Engr. Teofredo Dumaluan, Narciso Maghamil and Romeo Lapinid. From a three-man panel of provincial prosecutors, the rape slay breezed through the provincial prosecution system and finally the Department of Justice. A petition for review in the DOJ also resulted in the dismissal of the case.

The rape and murder case was filed by spouses Eusebio and Antonia Dumaluan, parents of minor Vivian Dumaluan who was found dead on April 4, 2004 at the Bagobo Beach Resort in Bolod, Panglao town. The victim's parents filed the petition before the Office of the President after then Secretary of Justice Raul Gonzalez sustained the majority ruling of the panel of prosecutors dismissing the rape with homicide cases against the Dumaluan brothers and Lapinig. Instead, the resolution found probable cause to charge self-confessed participant Alex Dasco and Maghamil for the crime. According to the decision dated March 1 signed by then Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, it found the petition filed by the victim's parents meritorious. It said that the dismissal of the case against the three was solely based on the integrity and incredibility of the declarations of witnesses Dasco and George Galo. “Indeed, the assailed resolutions of the panel of prosecutors and that of the DOJ Secretary were mainly anchored on the inconsistencies of the allegations of the complainants' witnesses even though inconsequential instead of a mere finding of evidence showing that more likely than not a crime has been committed by the herein respondents and that the latter were probably guilty thereof,” decision said.

The petitioners asserted that the report and recommendation of the Office of the Regional State Prosecutor – Region VII dated Jan. 23, 2009 should have swayed the Secretary of Justice to find probable cause against the respondents. According to the decision, a preliminary investigation is not an occasion for a full and exhaustive display of the parties' evidence; it is for the presentation of such evidence only as may engender a well-grounded belief that an offense has been committed and that the accused is probably guilty thereof. Considering these premises, the Office of the President reversed and set aside the resolutions dated Dec. 4, 2008 and Feb. 27, 2009 of the Secretary of Justice. With the overturned decision, the DOJ was ordered to refile the case. The refilling of the criminal complaint came barely a month before the sixth anniversary of the heinous crime which has shocked Panglao. In fact, it determined the outcome of the last two elections and influence the one coming up on May 10.

In a four-page decision dated March 1, then Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita ordered the DOJ to file the charges against Dumaluan, and the three others. The decision reversed and set aside the resolutions of then Justice Secretary Gonzalez which sustained the majority resolution of a panel from the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor which found probable cause against witness Alex Dasco and Maghamil. Dasco, a self-confessed participant in the crime, tagged the former mayor as the mastermind in the gruesome crime. The complaining spouses, the parents of the victim, filed a petition for review against the resolution of the Secretary of Justice (SOJ) dated Feb. 27, 2009 affirming his earlier resolution dated Dec. 4, 2008. The petitioners assailed the findings of the SOJ by arguing that it ignored alleged new and material issues raised regarding the credibility of their witnesses. They also asserted that the report and recommendation of the Office of the Regional State Prosecutor Region 7 dated Jan. 23, 2009 should have swayed the SOJ to find probable cause against the respondents. In the said report, the decision said the dismissal of the case by the panel of prosecutors was solely based on the integrity and incredibility of the declarations of witnesses Dasco and George Galo.

DUMALUAN ASSAILS REVERSAL OF DOJ RULING ON RAPE-SLAY CASE

 Former Panglao mayor Dr. Doloreich Dumaluan condemns a recent decision of the Office of the President which ordered the Department of Justice to file charges of rape with homicide against him and three others over the rape-slay of a 17-year old girl six years ago.

 Dumaluan, through lawyers Aleck Francis Lim and Esther Gertrude Biliran, filed on Wednesday an Omnibus Motion at the Office of the President to reconsider its decision in overturning resolutions of the DOJ and the Bohol Provincial Prosecutor's Office which already cleared the former mayor of the rape with homicide case, and to hold in abeyance the filing of charges in court. According to the former mayor of Panglao, the decision promulgated by the Office of the President did not find new evidence or findings of facts or the existence of probable cause that would implicate him, his brother Teofredo Dumaluan and Romeo Lapinig of the rape and killing of Vivian Dumaluan, whose lifeless body was found some 50-meters away from the Dumaluan Beach Resort on April 27, 2010. In a 4-page decision dated March 1 issued by then Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, the DOJ was directed to file the charges against Dumaluan, his brother Teofredo, Narciso Maghamil and Lapinig.

The order reversed resolutions of then Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, which upheld a resolution of a panel of prosecutors clearing Dumaluan, his brother and Lapinig but found probable cause to charge witness Alex Dasco and Maghamil of the crime. The former mayor and his co-respondents (brother Teofredo and Lapinig),  declared in the Omnibus Motion that the Office of the President “gravely erred” in its decision by solely relying on a Regional State Prosecutor Panel report and recommendation which was issued in connection with an administrative complaint against the panel of prosecutors in Bohol for their alleged impropriety in dismissing the criminal charges against Dumaluan and the other respondents. Dumaluan said that the investigation conducted by the Regional State Prosecutor Panel on the administrative complaint against the provincial panel of prosecutors was not a reinvestigation of the criminal complaint for rape with homicide and neither was it a product of an authorized review of the findings and resolution of the provincial panel of prosecutors. The motion further stated that the complainant in the administrative case is a stranger to the instant case, and the respondents were not parties in said administrative complaint, hence they had no opportunity to be heard and to present evidence to counter the allegations of the complainant. “It is unjust and highly irregular to use the same report against the respondents (Dumaluan, et al) and by doing so is a gross violation of their constitutional right to due process,” the motion stated.

The respondents added that the Regional State Prosecutor Panel did not have the authority to review the findings of the panel of provincial prosecutors who exhaustively conducted the preliminary investigation of the criminal complaint and that the power or authority to review “solely and exclusively lies with the Secretary of Justice”. “The Regional State Prosecutor Panel's conduct of an investigation arising from the administrative complaint did not require the stringent processes and quantum of evidence required in the investigation of criminal complaints,” the respondents cited in their motion. The respondents cited a Supreme Court ruling that the Secretary of Justice, who has the power of supervision and control over prosecuting officers has the ultimate authority over conflicting theories of the complainants and respondents while provincial or city prosecutors do not have the legal authority to review or overrule the secretary's decision. The motion likewise cited that the DOJ secretary has already cleared the panel of provincial prosecutors of any impropriety in the conduct of the preliminary investigation, in their appreciation of the evidence submitted and in their dismissal of the criminal complaints. Dumaluan and co-respondents asked the Office of the President to review and reconsider its March 1 decision by not merely adopting or relying on the report and recommendation of the Regional State Prosecutor Panel which conducted a distinct and separate administrative investigation.

LAND DISPUTE

The respondents cited in their motion that the whole case stemmed from a land dispute between the former mayor and businessman Anos Fonacier, the owner of Bohol Beach Club, a neighboring resort owner of Dumaluan. Fonacier allegedly designed and orchestrated the filing the criminal cases after verbal threats and warnings failed to intimidate the Dumaluan family and surrender their piece of land to him. Dumaluan alleged that Fonacier bragged that the Dumaluans would be locked up in jail if they refuse to give up their property, through his connections in the judiciary, including the Office of the President.