This decision sends a clear message that an individual cannot be stripped of their rights and freedoms based merely on suspicion, misplaced profiling, or the mere fact of being in a conflict area.

DUMAGUETE CITY — During the promulgation on September 22, 2025, the Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 42 in Dumaguete needed only less than 20 minutes to acquit the group Mabinay 6 of all 12 criminal charges. The group spent around seven years and six months in prison starting March 3, 2018 under alleged possession of firearms and explosives during the Duterte administration.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines claimed that the arrests followed a five-minute firefight, during which they allegedly recovered high-powered rifles, ammunition, and explosives.

During the promulgation attended by Bulatlat, Presiding judge Marie Rose G. Inocando-Paras ruled that there was no proof of an armed encounter and there was no proper handling of evidence pertaining to the 12 criminal charges.

On the same day of the ruling, journalist Myles Albasin was released from the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) Dumaguete City female dormitory while Jomar Garlet, Carlo Ybañez, Randel Hermino Balasabas, Joey Vailoces, and Bernard Embalsado walked free from the male facility.

“A victory for the rule of justice,” the press release of La Viña Zarate and Associates (LVZ) stated. They took over the case of Myles Albasin in 2023. 

“From the very beginning, we maintained that the charges against her were baseless. This decision affirms that the evidence presented did not support the claims of the prosecution,” Atty. Karlos Zarate of LVZ Law said during the court’s promulgation.

Armed encounter debunked

For prosecutors to secure convictions for illegal possession of firearms, ammunition, or explosives, they must establish existence, ownership, and lack of license to own or possess.

The arresting officers’ account of a firefight that allegedly led to the arrest of the Mabinay 6 in March 3, 2018, collapsed under scrutiny in court. In their Joint Affidavit of Arrest dated March 4, 2018, Army officers claimed they had pursued armed men into an abandoned house following a five-minute gun battle around 2:30 a.m., which they cited as grounds for a warrantless arrest. 

During the trial, this hot pursuit, according to legal counsel Atty. Kristian Lora, was not substantiated by the arresting officers. “…The AFP soldiers-witnesses admitted that they never saw their assailants entering into the said house,” his Facebook post read. 

Other than these arresting officers, no other witness nor evidence was presented to prove that the alleged armed encounter happened. No residents and barangay officials supported the claim of these soldiers.

Albasin testified that she was there as a journalist for ANINAW Productions. She was conducting research for the problems of the Mabinay community assisted by a certain Tatay Sayas. In her research, she found out about the water supply system problems. In Tatay Sayas’ home, she met fellow accused youth peasant advocate Carlo Ybañes, whom she knew from Anakbayan activities in Cebu. The other four (Hermino, Guillen, Vailoces, and Indico) are locals of Negros.

Albasin said that she was awakened by rustling leaves, footsteps, and barking dogs before soldiers surrounded the house. She and Indico recalled that troops threatened to throw a grenade if they did not surrender. 

“Sir, please don’t do that, there are people inside. We will now go out,” Albasin pleaded, according to court records. She said she was frisked, forced to the ground, and later watched a soldier fire successive shots as she sat on a rock, screaming in fear.

Vailoces, also a local resident, stressed no firefight took place. In the court judgment, he stated that any real encounter would have been heard by nearby households in Sitios Tumonon and Talingting in Mabinay, where even fiesta music was audible that night. He insisted gunfire was only heard after their arrest, like what Albasin told.

The forensic evidence also debunked the claim of the arresting officers. Paraffin tests on all six accused returned negative for gunpowder residue, according to Chemistry Reports C-21-18 to C-26-18 and the testimony of Police Lt. Col. Josephine Suico Llena.

While a negative result does not absolutely rule out gunfire, the fact that every single accused tested clean raises serious doubts on the prosecution’s version of events according to Llena. As Llena herself admitted, factors such as barrel length, wind conditions, or even gloves could explain individual negative results, but for all six detainees to return the same outcome was, in her words, “incredible” unless no shots were fired at all.

Evidence in question

The prosecution’s case was further revealed by inconsistencies. Although soldiers claimed to have seized rifles, grenades, and even a landmine from the accused, no witness testified to seeing them fire weapons. One of the arresting officers Sgt. Leo P. Calderon admitted under oath that no grenades or explosives were used in the supposed firefight. This raises questions about claims of possession. 

Calderon also estimated that the house where the six were arrested lay some 500 meters from the reported clash site. If there had indeed been sporadic gunfire at dawn, it would have been audible across the radius, making it implausible for the accused to simply remain in place “…as if waiting to be discovered,” according to the ruling.

Even the handling of evidence came under question. Firearms and explosives were reportedly placed in a sack, marked only later at the Mabinay police station, and shuffled between military and police custody without clear documentation. 

“No photographs were taken at the place of arrest. Even the police blotter did not reflect the markings allegedly made on the subject items,” legal counsel Lora wrote.

According to the ruling, no amount of the prosecution’s positive identification of the items in court can assure the court that these are the exact items allegedly seized from each of the accused, respectively, at the place of the arrest assuming there were. 

Given these contradictions and mishandling, the court concluded that the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. Citing jurisprudence, it stressed that the presumption of innocence remains unless moral certainty of guilt is established. “Where there is no moral certainty as to their guilt, they must be acquitted even though their innocence may be questionable,” the ruling quoted from Garma v. People.

Atty. Javvy Gamboa, one of the legal counsel of Albasin, said the court’s decision strongly affirms her innocence and upholds the triumph of truth and justice. “This decision sends a clear message that an individual cannot be stripped of their rights and freedoms based merely on suspicion, misplaced profiling, or the mere fact of being in a conflict area,” Gamboa stated in LVZ Law’s press release.

Solidarity

Following the news, supporters of the Mabinay 6 welcomed the acquittal. 

The University of the Philippines (UP) Cebu immediately staged a mass action moments after. Members of the Nagkahiusang Kusog sa Estudyante (NKE) UP Cebu, Anakbayan UP Cebu, Kabataan Partylist (KPL) Cebu chapter and other progressive groups in the university joined the mass action.

The National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP) Cebu chapter also expressed support. “We will continue to write their stories with more fervor and seek to hold to account those that had placed these young people in anguish for all those years,” their statement published on September 23, 2025 reads.

Albasin’s previous news outfit, ANINAW Productions, in a statement dated September 23, 2025, said that “Justice delayed is justice denied.” The seven years they spent in jail is “… time that no acquittal can ever return.”

For the Mabinay 6 legal counsel Atty. Lora, this acquittal is poetic justice considering the group was jailed under the Duterte administration. “Now, our clients are home while their jailer is in jail far away from home as his supporters keep on crying #BringHimHome,” his Facebook post read. (DAA)