The National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) welcomed the decision of a regional trial court granting the motion to quash the arrest order issued against a Protestant pastor.
A 10-page order from the Legazpi Regional Trial Court Branch 10 dated August 4 said the motion to quash the arrest orders against Pastor Danilo Balucio was granted for lack of probable cause.
Pastor Balucio has been accused of illegally selling guns.
“We laud the Honorable Court’s decision to side with the truth and justice,” read a statement issued by Bishop Reuel Norman O. Marigza, secretary general of the NCCP.
The bishop said the dismissal of the case “shows that such ridiculous charges against Pastor Balucio and other church workers in similar predicaments are fabricated and meant to harass.”
Pastor Dan Balucio is the coordinator of Andurog Mayon, NCCP’s ecumenical partner in humanitarian response operation in the Bicol region, south of Manila.
In a 10-page order to dismiss the case against Balucio, presiding judge Maria Theresa San-Juan Loquillano said the application for search warrants by the Philippine National Police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group were not based on personally-verified information.
Balucio was arrested on the same day in May 2021 with Sasah Sta. Rosa, spokesman of the activist youth group Anakbayan, in separate police operations in Albay and Camarines Sur provinces.
Other detained activists were also released after the court found no evidence or cited the lack of probable cause to support the arrest and search orders issued against them.
