Manila court acquits activist Nasino

A Manila court has acquitted an activist who lost her baby while undergoing trial, in a case that highlighted concerns over the plight of pregnant women under detention.

In a resolution dated July 17, 2023, Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 47 Judge John Benedict Medina acquitted Reina Mae Nasino and her two companions, Ram Carlo Bautista and Alma Moran, of illegal possession of firearms and explosives due to insufficiency of evidence.

Nasino was pregnant when she and her companions were arrested in November 2019. She gave birth while under detention. Her baby, named River, died after being separated from her mother.

In acquitting the three, the court reconsidered its earlier ruling which dismissed their demurrer to evidence, essentially a motion to dismiss due to lack of prosecution evidence.

The court cited the conflicting testimonies of witnesses and the failure of the prosecution to present the seized items in court.

The prosecution presented three witnesses — two policemen and the barangay or village chairwoman.

But their statements differed as to where the firearms, ammunition, and explosives were supposedly found — in the two rooms on the third floor according to the cops; on the second floor for the chairwoman.

The chairwoman also had varying statements on whether she knows the three arrested activists.

“The Court finds that the unmistakable conflicting testimonies of the prosecution witnesses generate serious doubt as to whether the firearms with ammunitions and explosives were really found in the rooms of the accused as they were not identified with sufficient particularity,” the resolution said.

“These inconsistencies in the material details of their discovery are so striking that this Court ought not to have ignored or brushed aside. They are contradictions that not only undermine all efforts of the Prosecution to reconstruct the event at hand but altogether erode the evidentiary value of the prosecution evidence,” it added.

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