Prosecutor again junks sedition case vs teacher who tweeted reward for Duterte’s death

THE SEDITION complaint against public school teacher Ronnel A. Mas — who allegedly offered a P50-million reward to anyone who could assassinate President Rodrigo R. Duterte in a social media post on Twitter last year — has again been junked by a provincial prosecutor’s office after it denied the motion for reconsideration filed by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).

The Office of the Prosecutor in Olongapo City said the NBI “seeks to shortcut the proceedings” by submitting the video evidence of Mr. Mas’s public confession on social media with the motion for reconsideration instead of during the earlier filing of the case.

“The introduction of new evidence during a motion for reconsideration is not proper,” the prosecutor said.

The prosecutor also quoted a ruling from the Supreme Court stating that “the very purpose of a motion for reconsideration is to give the prosecutor a chance to correct any errors that he or she may have committed in issuing the resolution ordering the filing of an information in court or dismissing the complaint.”

Nevertheless, the prosecutor said the NBI can still re-file the case “with the sufficient documents and evidence to establish probable cause.”

The prosecutor also stressed that “rules on evidence in establishing probable cause must be upheld.”

This is the third time that the NBI lost the case against Mr. Mas.   

An Olongapo City court dismissed the NBI’s case last year, citing that Mr. Mas was illegally arrested. Then in February this year, a Zambales prosecutor also junked the new complaint filed by the NBI for failure to provide substantial evidence that it was Mr. Mas who posted the subject Twitter post.   

“I hope they accept defeat and they should already stop harassing Teacher Ronnel,” Mr. Mas’s lawyer, Dino S. De Leon, said in a public statement on Tuesday. — Bianca Angelica D. Añago