Vhong Navarro to pursue legal remedies on Cornejo, Lee’s potential release

It's Showtime host Vhong Navarro is not about to sit down following the Court of Appeals order of the release of Deniece Cornejo and Cedric Lee.

“Through all these years, Mr. Vhong Navarro chose to keep faith with the justice system in place in our country… In keeping with that faith, he will continue to pursue all the remedies that are available to him,” Navarro’s lawyer Alma Mallonga said.

“He is prepared to fully accept the result of that process when it finally ends,” she added.

The Court of Appeals had modified Lee and Cornejo’s conviction, resulting to in the reduced offense from serious illegal detention for ransom to grave coercion.

With the appellate court sentencing Lee.and Cornejo to six months as minimum to three years, six months and 21 days as maximum, Mallonga countered: “It is not true that the accused have been detained since 2014, which is the reason the Court of Appeals had ordered their immediate release.”

“But they have, in fact, been serving time in prison. Whether or not the period the accused have spent in incarceration is sufficient, considering the affirmance of their conviction, is a matter of law which everyone is bound to respect,” she explained.

However, Mallonga said that her client, “shall continue to trust in the process and abide by whatever that requires."

Lee was in BuCor custody since 3 May 2024, while Cornejo was incarcerted a day earlier.