Group slams bail for Italian envoy

AMBASSADOR Daniele Bosio in a photo taken from the official website of the Italian Embassy in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. FILE PHOTO

BIÑAN CITY—Members of an antihuman trafficking group on Friday stormed the regional trial court in this city to assail the court’s ruling that allowed the temporary release of Italian diplomat Daniele Bosio, who was arrested and detained for the alleged abuse and trafficking of three Filipino children.

Members of the nongovernment End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of children for Sexual Purposes (Ecpat) held placards as they asked Judge Teodoro Solis of the Regional Trial Court Branch 25 to resign.

“We are asking that the judge inhibit from the case and that the case be transferred to a court in Manila,” said Ecpat head Amihan Abueva.

Bosio posted P900,000 in bail a day after Solis, on July 8, granted his petition for temporary release.

Bosio, the Italian ambassador to Turkmenistan, was on a holiday when he was arrested on April 8 in a popular resort in this city.

The arrest came after members of the child rights group Bahay Tuluyan Foundation was alarmed at seeing the 46-year-old Bosio with three boys who turned out to be street children from Caloocan City.

Biñan City Prosecutor Agripino Baybay recommended charges of three counts of child abuse and three counts of human trafficking against Bosio.

The diplomat was initially detained at the local detention facility but was later transferred to a private hospital in Makati City a month before his petition for bail was granted.

“Bosio, in layman’s terms, complained of kidney stones,” Solis said.

“This is a kind of discriminatory justice. We have to be very vigilant because it is much easier for him now to escape. Right now we don’t know where he is,” Abueva said.

Abueva said unlike child abuse, human trafficking is a nonbailable offense under Philippine laws.

“But as a matter of right, he or any other person has the right to file a petition for bail, which we heard and granted,” Solis said.

He said the Bureau of Immigration on July 10 also issued a hold departure order against Bosio, based on the recommendation of the court, “to ensure that he won’t flee.”

Supt. Noel Alino, Biñan police chief, said police have confiscated Bosio’s passport to ensure he won’t flee the country.

The supposed arraignment of the foreign diplomat is currently suspended as the Department of Justice hears Bosio’s petition for a review of the case.

The Inquirer tried calling lawyer Romeo Lumagui Jr. of SyCip Law, Bosio’s counsel, but he was in a meeting and unavailable for interview.