The Court of Appeals has dismissed the P5.4-million damage suit filed by the United Church of Christ in the Philippines against former president and now House Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo over the alleged extrajudicial killings during her regime that victimized their pastors and members.
The court’s Special 14th Division denied the petition filed by the UCCP, through general secretary Bishop Reuel Norman Marigza and the families of six victims of the so-called Oplan Bantay Laya during the Arroyo administration.
The petition had sought compensation for moral damages for the group’s allegedly besmirched reputation and for the deaths of some of its members and their relatives.
The court instead upheld the decision of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court, Branch 226, in Sept. 2016 that granted Arroyo’s demurrer to evidence and dismissed the civil complaint for damages.
“All told, this Court finds that the evidence adduced is wholly insufficient to support the ultimate facts asserted in the complaint,” the court said in its decision writtend by Associate Justice Zenaida Galapate-Laguilles.
Associate Justices Mario Lopez and Ronaldo Roberto Martin concurred with the ruling.
The appellate court sided with the RTC’s finding that the complainants lacked personal knowledge of the deaths and tortures and failed to show that military personnel committed the acts.
The evidence only included death certificates and the military’s tagging of the UCCP as an alleged ally of the Communist Party of the Philippines in the book Trinity of War, Book III.
“This Court concurs with the court that the witnesses lacked personal knowledge with respect to the alleged deaths and tortures suffered by their respective deceased family members. Worse, there is even no showing that the dastardly acts were perpetrated by military people,” the appellate court said.
“As all of these individuals admitted that they did not witness the killings, their imputation to the military of participation in or authorship of the crimes are within the realm of speculation.”
The appellate court also said that the UCCP itself was not entitled to damages since it was a corporation and not a natural person.
It likewise cited the failure of the group to show evidence and establish the injury it supposedly sustained from its damaged reputation.
The UCCP filed the damage suit over the alleged extra-judicial killings of five of its members and the kidnapping of another priest from 2003 to 2006.
The group alleged that Arroyo was liable for damages as she failed to fulfill her duties as President and commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
Under the Oplan Bantay Laya”•the anti-communist insurgency operation of the Armed Forces during Arroyo administration-UCCP was among the society and church organizations identified as front organizations of the Communist Party of the Philippines, and thus targets for neutralization by the military.
