By CALVIN CORDOVA
CEBU CITY – The 16-year-old girl who was brutally murdered in Lapu-Lapu City was laid to rest last Saturday.
Emotions ran high during the burial of Christine Lee Silawan, whose mutilated body was found in a vacant lot in Barangay Bankal last March 11.
But as Silawan’s family, relatives, and friends bade her goodbye, the 17-year-old boy suspected to be behind the gruesome killing was set free.
Silawan was buried at the Cattleya Cemetery in Cordova, Cebu almost the same time when the boy, who is her former boyfriend, was released from the custody of the Lapu-Lapu Social Welfare Development Office.
Vincent Isles, the boy’s legal counsel, said he picked up the boy past noon last Saturday and brought him to a safe house.
The boy was released after Isles contested that the warrantless arrest was invalid.
“Last Thursday, we filed an omnibus motion to release the boy from the custody of the homecare facility of the social welfare office because there is no valid ground for him to be held under the custody of the law,” said Isles.
The National Bureau of Investigation in Central Visayas (Region 7) theorized that Silawan was killed between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. last March 10.
NBI Region 7 agents arrested the boy in his home in Barangay Maribago, Lapu-Lapu last March 16. It filed a complaint for murder against the boy before the Lapu-Lapu Prosecutor’s Office.
Isles questioned the arrest, saying that the warrantless arrest was made more than five days after the crime was committed.
“He was not arrested in flagrante delicto. He was arrested on the basis of the hot pursuit theory. But under the hot pursuit theory, you must have personal knowledge as well as probable cause to believe that he was the one who committed crime,” Isles said.
“He was arrested more than five days so there was no basis for warrantless arrest and preliminary investigation should be conducted instead,” Isles added.
Isles explained that the filing of the motion to release the boy was just part of the process. “I emphasized that the decision to release does not in any way indicate the strength or the weakness of the case against him. The case will continue but it will go through the regular preliminary investigation where we will submit our counter-affidavit,” Isles said.
Isles shrugged off the findings of social workers that the boy can already discern with what he is doing although he is still a minor. “Discernment is different from confession. It doesn’t necessarily mean that she was the one who committed the crime. He knows the right from the wrong but it has nothing to do with the crime,” he said.
Isles said the boy was not brought home for security reasons. “He was visibly relieved when he was released,” Isles said.
Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission Chairman Dante Jimenez was disappointed with the release of the boy, saying that there were too many loopholes in the investigation.
Jimenez attended the burial of Silawan. Hundreds of people attended the burial, and some of them wore white shirts with printed words “Justice for Christine.”
During the requiem mass at the Santo Niño Church in Barangay Mactan, Christine’s mother Lourdes had to be attended by paramedics after she passed out. Christine was buried on the 48th birth anniversary of her mother.
