The family of Eileen Sarmenta, in an interview with ABS-CBN Wednesday, said it was no longer pursuing the payment of civil damages from convicted rapist-murderer Antonio Sanchez.
During the Senate hearing on Tuesday, Senator Franklin Drilon asked Sanchez’ camp whether civil damages had been settled with the families of victims, Eileen Sarmenta and Allan Gomez, amounting to more than P12 million.
Elvira Sanchez, common-law-wife of the former Calauan, Laguna mayor, said they had no intentions of compensating the victims, claiming Sanchez was innocent of the crime.
Mrs. Clara Sarmenta said that Sanchez failed to prove that he was innocent of the crime in the course of the trial.
Drilon called on the Department of Justice to push for a Writ of Execution demanding that Sanchez’ camp pay for damages, but Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra cited the prescriptive period for the case.
Sarmenta said the family was not aware of the prescriptive period, neither did they have the means to look for all possible properties of Sanchez for their civil claims.
The Sarmenta family members said they had to raise the issue on the non-payment of civil damages as a question to Sanchez’ release for allegedly “good conduct.”
The Sanchez family has since insisted that the former mayor is eligible for release under the Good Conduct Time Allowance law.
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