One can hardly expect her to have a differen reaction.
“TV host Vhong Navarro’s layer, Atty Alma Mallonga, says she was ‘shocked and dismayed’ over the Taguig City Regional Trial Court’s (RTC) decision granting bail to accused Cedric Lee, Deniece Cornejo, and Zimmer Raz,” reports Camille Diola on Philstar.com.
In her decision, Taguig RTC Branch 271 presiding judge Paz Esperanza Cortes explained she was granting a bail of PHP500,000 for each of the accused. She also noted that “the prosecution failed to provide strong evidence that the detention of Navarro was indeed serious.”
For her part, Mallonga admitted that the decision “poses a challenge to prosecutors to further rationalize the case in connection with the mauling of Navarro last January.”
“I’m very surprised, if not shocked and dismayed mainly because I know what the case is all about, I know what our legal and factual premises are and I know the evidence. Illegal detention is [when a] private complainant must have been detained even if it’s less than four days and the detention must be illegal. All those elements are [t]here. We saw for a fact that [Vhong’s] hands and feet were tied,” Mallonga said.
Well, the judge apparently disagrees.
Screengrab from a GMA News video
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