Batanes trial moved to Manila

Taiwanese investigators rides a rubber boat as they inspect a ship involved in the shooting of a Taiwanese fisherman while they continue their probe in Manila on Tuesday, May 28, 2013. AP FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines–Describing as “burdensome” the need to transport witnesses and pieces of evidence from Manila to Batanes, the Supreme Court has approved the request last year of Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) officers to have the venue of their homicide trial transferred from the regional trial court (RTC) of Basco, Batanes, to the Manila RTC.

In a three-page resolution released Thursday, the high court’s Second Division granted the PCG request and directed the Basco RTC Branch 13 to forward to the executive judge of the Manila RTC the records of the case involving eight PCG personnel charged for the fatal shooting of a Taiwanese poacher at the Balintang Channel off Batanes in May 2013.

The court order said the case would be raffled off to a new judge who would then “hear, try and decide the case with dispatch.”

The high tribunal considered the argument of the PCG guardsmen who said that the continuing hearings on the case in Basco “would be burdensome not only to the accused but also the prosecution,” as the evidence and witnesses would have to be transported from Manila to Batanes during the hearings.

“The prosecution would also have to bring to the Philippines some of their witnesses from Taiwan and Indonesia at the expense of the Philippine government,” the order said, adding that the case was “especially a sensitive matter as (it) would affect the relations of the Philippines with the Republic of Taiwan.”