Ex-Palawan governor’s murder case dusted off

The Department of Justice (DoJ) will ask the Quezon City Regional Trial Court to schedule the arraignment of former Palawan governor Joel Reyes for murder in connection with the 2011 killing of broadcaster Gerry Ortega in Puerto Princesa City.

Senior Deputy State Prosecutor Richard Anthony Fadullon, the prosecutor general officer-in-charge, said, “Prosecutors will ask to have the case revived, retrieved from the archives, and scheduled for arraignment and pre-trial.”

The Supreme Court (SC) had ordered the transfer of the case against Reyes from the Puerto Princesa RTC to the Quezon City RTC, Fadullon said.

He explained that the case had been archived because Reyes was at large until his recent surrender to the National Bureau of Investigation. On Wednesday, the Presidential Task Force on Media Security announced Reyes’s surrender.

Reyes and his brother, Coron Mayor Mario Reyes, were indicted in 2011 for the killing of Ortega, who was a known critic of the brothers over alleged mining activities and corruption in the province.

The two fled to Thailand but were arrested and returned to the Philippines in 2015.

In 2018, the Court of Appeals (CA) ruled in their favor and ordered the Puerto Princesa RTC to drop the charges.

However, the CA reversed its ruling in 2019 and ordered the resumption of the trial due to a lack of grounds to dismiss the charges.

In 2023, the Supreme Court ordered the trial court to proceed “with utmost dispatch” and issued a warrant for the former governor’s arrest.