CEBU CITY -- A false accusation amounts to a human rights abuse, said the couple whom police first tagged as suspects in the abduction and murder of a Cebuana schoolgirl.
That's why they filed a complaint asking the United Nations (UN) to compel the Republic of the Philippines to pay them US$60 million or about P2.5 billion at Friday's exchange rate.
Norwegian tourist Sven Erik Berger and his Cebuana fiancée, Karen Esdrelon, filed the new complaint seven days after they lodged a P220-million damage suit against four police officers and an immigration official at the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas.
One of their lawyers, Glen Villariza, said the new complaint centered on the "human rights abuses" committed by police officers. The government, being their employer, is liable for the charged offense, he said.
Previously, at the ombudsman's office, Berger and Esdrelon filed criminal and administrative charges against former provincial police chief Erson Digal, police officers Rubin Cuizon and Lamberto Hibaya, airport policewoman Donalita Sotto and immigration officer Arthur Omega.
In their new joint complaint-affidavit, the couple said the unlawful acts allegedly committed by the respondents tarnished their reputation and caused them "sleepless nights, mental anguish, serious anxiety, moral and social humiliation" not just in the Philippines, but also in Norway.
Accompanied by their counsels Villariza and Gil Tayag, the couple went to the ombudsman's office Friday afternoon purportedly to attend a clarificatory hearing of the charges they filed last week.
They were told, however, that no hearing was necessary just yet.
They then proceeded to the Office of the Cebu Provincial Prosecutor, where the couple swore an oath in relation to their new complaint.
The lawyers declined to give a copy.
Villariza said a simple Google search of the names of Berger and Esdrelon now brings up phrases containing unpleasant descriptions of the couple, such as "child murderer and kidnapper," among others.
Villariza also told ABS-CBN's TV Patrol Central Visayas that the reputation of the couple was "internationally damaged." He said the formal complaint will be sent Saturday to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.
Berger, in separate interview, said he could not say yet whether he would forgive former provincial police chief Digal and his men for the inconvenience and trouble they caused him and his fiancée. He said they would wait for updates of their case and rely on their lawyers.
Berger, 49, and Esdrelon, 25, were arrested for the abduction and murder of Ellah Joy Pique of Minglanilla, Cebu, shortly before their flight to Hong Kong from Mactan.
Ellah Joy was allegedly snatched from her school in Barangay Calajo-an, Minglanilla, Cebu last February 8. The following day, her naked body was found at the foot of a cliff in Barili, Cebu.
The police filed a charge for the complex crime of kidnapping with homicide against the couple, but government prosecutors later dismissed the case for insufficiency of evidence.
Assistant Provincial Prosecutors Marlon Atillo and Marvin dela Peña, in their resolution, had dismissed the charges against the couple, who produced documents that they were somewhere else when the crime was committed.
The National Bureau of Investigation in Central Visayas secured photos from cameras at the Waterfront Hotel and Casino in Cebu City, showing the couple in the hotel around the time Pique disappeared.
The police freed Berger and Esdrelon from detention two weeks after their arrest. They have since filed another charge against another couple, British national Ian Charles Griffiths and his Cebuana girlfriend, Bella Ruby Santos.
In a related development, a police official said that Griffiths and Santos were just "copying" the move of the first pair of suspects linked to the Pique case.
The couple intends to file a "multi-million-dollar damage suit" against some police officers and prosecution witnesses, according to their lawyer, Rameses Villagonzalo.
Senior Superintendent Patrocinio Comendador, spokesperson of the Task Force Ellah Joy, told reporters Friday the couple is just imitating Esdrelon and Berger's moves.
Comendador said he didn't feel "harassed" by the threat of being sued by Griffiths and Santos.
"That's their right to file a complaint," he said in Cebuano. "We are just doing our job."
Comendador said they got a manifesto from a sea vessel, but he could not confirm if one of the passengers was Santos.
"There was no first name," he said.
According to an earlier report, Santos allegedly left for Zamboanga, with a brief stop in Negros Occidental. Her name was supposedly found in a manifesto of a roll-on-roll-off vessel bound for San Carlos City, Negros Occidental. (GMD/KAL/Sun.Star Cebu)
