Cebu City Assistant Prosecutor Mary Ann Castro (CDN PHOTO/ADOR VINCENT MAYOL)
Cebu City Assistant Prosecutor Mary Ann Castro is in for more legal and administrative woes.
The Philippine National Police in Central Visayas (PRO-7) will ask the Department of Justice (DOJ) to order Castro’s immediate suspension while a petition for disbarment will be filed against her before the Supreme Court, according to Senior Supt. Rey Lyndon Lawas, deputy director for operations of PRO-7.
A separate case will also be lodged against Castro before the Office of the Ombudsman in the Visayas for violation of the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees, said Lawas.
PRO-7 will likewise seek a motion for reconsideration on the decision of the Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office to dismiss the complaints it lodged against Castro for grave oral defamation, grave coercion and resistance and serious disobedience to persons in authority, added lawyer Inocencio de la Cerna, the private counsel of the aggrieved Regional Special Operations Group (RSOG) policemen.
“We will show to the inquest prosecutor that they have to rethink and reevaluate the grave coercion charges. We believe that there was grave coercion on her part,” he said.
On Wednesday, Castro was indicted by the Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office for two counts of direct assault and for malicious mischief for allegedly hurting policemen when she went berserk inside the Regional Special Operations Group (RSOG) office in Camp Sergio Osmeña on Monday night, but she was cleared of the other cases for lack of probable cause.
Lawas said PRO-7 will pursue all cases against Castro and exhaust all avenues “to bring justice to our fellow policemen” and ensure she receives the punishment that she deserved. “We will file charges and we will make sure that our cases are tight. We are only doing this to let the truth come out,” he said.
The decision to pursue all cases that could be thrown against Castro was reached during their initial case conference held at Camp Sergio Osmeña yesterday, revealed De la Cerna.
“I was told that they (top PNP officials) are very serious about pursuing all avenues and all cases in the different courts and agencies against Castro,” said De la Cerna.
He said the administrative complaint the PRO-7 will file before the DOJ would ask for her preventive suspension to ensure that she will not use her influence pending the trial.
Castro, however, was unperturbed, even by the possibility of facing a disbarment proceedings before the Supreme Court.
“Filing of cases is the right of any person, but to prove these charges is another thing. If I survived bigger controversies in the past, there’s no reason why I can’t surpass this little issue now,” she said yesterday.
She then issued a dare: “The question is ‘Kaya ba nila si Mary Ann Castro?’ (Can they handle a Mary Ann Castro?) I’ve been through a lot of trials and adversities. Maybe, if they are on my place, they couldn’t survive the pains and trials I went through.”
Castro believed that in the end, she would emerge the winner.
“Akin pa rin ang huling halakhak. (I will have the final laugh),” she said.
Castro was interviewed at her office yesterday shortly when she reported back to work after she was arrested and held under police custody for 20 hours.
Castro, who is freed on bail on Wednesday, resumed her duties at the Regional Trial Court Branch 15 in Cebu City yesterday morning and represented the government in a number of drug cases heard by presiding Judge Samuel Malazarte.
Castro and her six companions were arrested inside the RSOG office at Camp Sergio Osmeña in Cebu City shortly before midnight last Monday for allegedly attacking Maricel Gregory, the long time live-in partner of her estranged husband, Leodegreco “Greco” Sanchez, the son of the late Vice Gov. Gregorio Sanchez and the brother of Cebu Provincial Board Member Grecilda Sanchez-Zaballero.
The 46-year-old prosecutor allegedly went berserk, harassed the RSOG policemen, bit one of them, and ordered his four male companions to forcibly open the door of the room where Gregory was held under custody. Gregory surrendered to RSOG on Monday afternoon after she learned that an arrest warrant had been issued against her for the four counts of libel cases filed against her last year by Castro. Gregory posted bail last Wednesday.
Castro maintained she went to the RSOG office not to cause any commotion, but to verify reports that Gregory was protected by the policemen.
Castro said she even brought Gaudiosa Rodrigo, and Hazel Mabuyo, her two female neighbors from their village in Talisay City, to take a video of what went on.
But Senior Insp. Ruel Burlat of RSOG-7 allegedly confiscated their cellphones and deleted the video of what transpired, she claimed.
Burlat, however, could not be reached for comment on Castro’s allegations.
Mabuyo and Rodrigo, who have become Castro’s co-accused in the string of cases filed by the police, were likewise freed on bail on Wednesday and could not be reached to confirm Castro’s claim.
Asked for her message to her arresting officers, Castro replied, “I am Mary Ann Castro. Not only that, something is added to my name. I am Mary Ann Castro-Sanchez.”
She was referring to the family name she acquired after she got married in an Islamic wedding ceremony with Sanchez in August 2015.
Castro refused to divulge her next steps, but she earlier announced that she would file counter-charges against the policemen who arrested her.
“If you want peace, be prepared to go to war,” she said without elaborating.