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	City Prosecutor Takes over Case Vs Fr. Ben By Nilda Gallo Cebu Daily News October 19, 2007 http://globalnation.inquirer.net/cebudailynews/news/view_article.php?article_id=95431 Cebu City Prosecutor Nicholas Sellon will be taking over the case of Fr. Benedicto Ejares, who is accused of acts of lasciviousness filed by seven high school students. Sellon yesterday acted on the two motions filed by their lawyers, Gerardo Carillo and Butch Cañares. One motion was to overturn the decision of two prosecutors who recommended that the case against Ejares be dropped. The other motion was for the same two prosecutors to inhibit themseleves from resolving the motion. While Sellon denied the motion for inhibition filed against Assistant Prosecutor Alexander Acosta and Reviewing Prosecutor Fernando Gubalane, he would resolve the motion to overturn anyway, since both Acosta and Gubalane voluntarily inhibited themselves from the case, "to dispel any doubt of bias or prejudgment." Sellon said there was nothing in the case's records that would show that Acosta and Gubalane had done anything irregular that would merit their inhibition. "Unfortunately, the one and only reason given by the complainants for the inhibition of these two prosecutors is their having penned the contested resolutions," said Sellon. Sellon ordered Ejares, through his lawyer Antonio Bacalso II, to submit a comment or opposition to the complaintants' motions within 10 days upon receipt before he decides on it. In the complainants' motion for reconsideration, they asked the prosecutor's office to indict Ejares for violation of child welfare rights. Acosta and Gubalane, in their recommendation to drop the case against the priest, said they did not believe Ejares had malicious intentions when he touched the seven teenagers. "It would require an unreasonable overstretching of one's imagination to conclude that the priests gestures – touching the arms, backs and shoulders of the girls – were done with lewd designs," the prosecutors said. However, Carillo and Cañares, in their motion for reconsideration, said the priest's actions "caused serious and lasting psychological and emotional trauma to the students." The lawyers stated in their motion that they attached with it transcripts of interviews conducted by social workers on the seven students detailing what the priest did to them. Staff at the prosecutors office, however, noted that there were no transcripts included in the motion for reconsideration. Also Sellon noted a procedural error in the lawyers' motion for inhibition that requires it to be verified under Section 56 of the Manual for Prosecutors. The error, however, "can be cured without causing irreparable damage or injury to the substantial rights of the respondent (Ejares)." He gave the lawyers a chance to correct the error. Sellon, who released his order yesterday afternoon – two days after Carillo and Cañares filed their motions – ordered the lawyers to submit to within seven days an affidavit of verification so it could be attached to the motion for inhibition and be part of the records of the cases.
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