MANILA, Philippines — Fugitive former Palawan governor Joel Reyes, the suspect behind the killing of journalist-environmentalist Gerry Ortega, is now under the custody of Philippine authorities.
Citing a source, the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFOMS) said on Wednesday night, September 11, that Ortega surrendered to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Metro Manila office. Rappler has reached out to the NBI for more details, but they have yet to respond as of writing.
Reyes was the suspect behind the killing of Ortega, who was gunned down in Puerto Princesa City in 2011. Aside from being Reyes’ staunch critic, Ortega exposed corruption in his province and exposed how Reyes allegedly misused the Malampaya fund, or the profits from the exploration of the Malampaya gas and oil fields in Palawan.
In March this year, large and respected media rights groups including the Committee to Protect Journalists and the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) came together to put pressure on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s government to solve Ortega’s case.
Complaints were filed against the former governor after Ortega’s killing, but the first panel of prosecutors cleared Reyes. Then-justice secretary Leila de Lima created a second panel, which charged him for the case in 2012. The same year, Puerto Princesa City court issued an arrest warrant against Reyes, but he was already in hiding at the time. He was only arrested in Thailand 2015.
Three years later, in 2018, Reyes was released when the Court of Appeals (CA) decided in his favor and stopped the trial in Palawan. But only a year later, a CA justices reversed the decision and ordered Reyes’ rearrest. This resulted in the revival of the murder trial. Reyes was convicted of graft at the Sandiganbayan for a separate case, and was ordered jailed by the court even if his appeal was pending, due to his being a flight risk.
In 2021, Ortega’s family was shocked by the news that Reyes was apparently released and had managed to file his candidacy for governor of Palawan for the 2022 elections. Reyes lost the elections, but he won another in the Supreme Court (SC) in March 2022 when the High Court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) to stop anew the trial in Palawan and to prohibit the implementation of the warrant against him.
A year later, the SC lifted the TRO and resumed the trial again, and ordered the “immediate re-arrest” of Reyes. The SC transferred Reyes’ trial from Palawan to Quezon City late last year.
Based on the NUJP’s tally, at least 199 Filipino journalists have been killed since 1986. This number includes all journalists slain in relation to their job. In terms of conviction of suspects, only 42 perpetrators were convicted out of 188, according to the NUJP Media Safety Office in 2020. The 188 reflected the number of journalists killed from 1986 to 2020.– Rappler.com