{"id":114382,"date":"2017-08-28T02:10:15","date_gmt":"2017-08-28T06:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=114382"},"modified":"2017-08-29T02:43:55","modified_gmt":"2017-08-29T06:43:55","slug":"law-students-activist-priest-urge-aguirre-to-inhibit-from-kian-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/08\/28\/law-students-activist-priest-urge-aguirre-to-inhibit-from-kian-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Law students, activist priest urge Aguirre to inhibit from Kian case"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The group made up of students from UP, Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Manila, and De La Salle College Antipolo, will file a petition in DOJ urging Aguirre to inhibit from the case on Tuesday. (Photo: Supplied)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A group of student leaders and law students, joined by \u2018Running Priest\u2019 Father Robert Reyes urged Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II in a press conference on August 28, to inhibit himself from Kian Delos Santos\u2019 case.<\/p>\n

The group said that Aguirre has \u2018lost all credibility\u2019 to hear the case following his one-sided statements during the DOJ budget hearing. They are supporting the Office of the Ombudsman to handle the investigation of Delos Santos instead.<\/p>\n

Kathleen Benavidez of the University of the Philippines (UP) Law School, said that calling Delos Santos\u2019 death \u2018overblown\u2019 and the witnesses \u2018brainwashed\u2019 proves that the Justice Secretary \u2018already made up his mind.\u2019<\/p>\n

The law students said that through Aguirre\u2019s statements, he has violated the following provisions of the Code of Professional Responsibility of Filipino Lawyers, in many occasions, in response to the slay case of Delos Santos:<\/p>\n

Rule 1.01 – A lawyer shall not engage in unlawful, dishonest, immoral or deceitful conduct.<\/em><\/p>\n

Rule 3.01 – A lawyer shall not use or permit the use of any false, fraudulent, misleading, deceptive, undignified, self-laudatory or unfair statement or claim regarding his qualifications or legal services.<\/em><\/p>\n

Rule 8.01 – A lawyer shall not, in his professional dealings, use language which is abusive, offensive or otherwise improper.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThis not only sets a bad example to aspiring lawyers but it actually erodes the public\u2019s trust in our justice system. It is to the satisfaction of justice that Aguirre would not intervene in the investigations and the proceedings, and just let justice run its due course\u201d Benavidez added.<\/p>\n

Jeza Rodriguez Officer-in-Charge Secretary General of Student Council Alliance of the Philippines said, \u201cOfficials who cannot be trusted to tell the truth cannot be trusted to provide a fair investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The students furthered by citing the record of Aguirre\u2019s \u2018whitewashing\u2019 of police brutality, in the killing of Albuera Mayor Espinosa\u2019s case in which 19 cops were accused of murder and was downgraded to a bailable offense of homicide.<\/p>\n

They also called on Aguirre to stop insisting on taking custody of the Delos Santos\u2019 case\u2019s witnesses into the Witness Protection Program.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is our view that the DOJ Secretary\u2019s initiative to secure the witnesses to the case of Kian de los Santos is detrimental to having a thorough and impartial investigation of the case,\u201d Benavidez said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAguirre is desperate to protect the cops like he has done before during Espinosa\u2019s case,\u201d Amber Quiban of Bukluran UP System said. \u201cHe has no interest to protect the witnesses so he should stop insisting on taking them in as well,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

The group made up of students from UP, Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Manila, and De La Salle College Antipolo, will file a petition in DOJ urging Aguirre to inhibit from the case on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday during the DOJ budget hearing, Aguirre said \u00a0that Delos Santos\u2019 death is part of the casualties expected when there is a war.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlown out of proportion in the media\u00a0[ito] kaya akala mo napakalaki na. Isa lang siya sa<\/em>\u00a0thousands\u00a0na pang-aabuso ng pulis kung talagang may pang-aabuso\u00a0<\/em>(This is blown out of proportion in the media that is why it looks big. He is only one of the thousands that were abused by the police if there is really abuse).\u201d<\/p>\n

While in the Senate inquiry on Thursday, he said “If these witnesses, especially they are children, two of them –13 and 16 years old — are put under the custody of an individual especially if these individual\u2019s fairness is in question, the credibility of these witnesses is bound to go down because we could never avoid the suspicion that they might have been brainwashed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A group of student leaders and law students, joined by \u2018Running Priest\u2019 Father Robert Reyes urged Department of Justice (DOJ) …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":114644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[11672,3414,22108,22109],"class_list":["post-114382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-aguirre","tag-doj","tag-law-students","tag-robert-reyes","mauthors-bea-kirstein-t-manalaysay","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}