Zambales Prosecutor Junks Case vs Teacher Who Offered Reward to Kill Duterte

Zambales Prosecutor Dismisses Case vs Teacher Who Offered Reward to Kill President Duterte Due To Lack of Probable Cause

The Zambales prosecutor has dismissed the criminal charges against the teacher who offered reward to kill President Duterte.

Acting Provincial Prosecutor Leonardo Santos junked the National Bureau of Investigation’s appeal to reconsider the dismissal of criminal complaints against the teacher named Ronnel Mas.

Santos stood on his decision for the third time due to lack of probable cause. The judge explained that the complainants must present a solid evidence in establishing probable cause including documents and evidence.

Last May 2020, the teacher Ronnel Mas has been arrested for allegedly offering P50 million to anyone who could bring down President Duterte. However, Olongapo City court dismissed the case after the following months.

NBI refiled a complaint but was dismissed again last February 2021. The agency has appealed for a motion for reconsideration and submit a video of Mas allegedly confessing to the crime.

Unfortunate, the appeals have been rejected repeatedly due to lack of evidence to prove the claims. The teacher’s lawyer Dino De Leon asked the NBI to accept defeat.

“To be clear, it is not that a crime has not been committed that the [complaint] has been dismissed. It is the insufficiency of evidence to prove that indeed the respondent is the perpetrator of the crime, i.e., he owns the Twitter account and that he is the one who posted it,” the resolution wrote.