Court of Appeals convicts mastermind in killing of Korean Jee Ick Joo

MANILA, Philippines – The Court of Appeals (CA) has convicted a cop over the killing of Korean Jee Ick Joo at the height of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war in 2017.

The country’s appellate court reversed the acquittal of Police Lieutenant Colonel Rafael Dumlao III, the mastermind behind the Korean’s killing, the Supreme Court (SC) said on Friday, July 19. The SC said the CA’s 13th Division granted the petition for certiorari filed by prosecutors, which sought to nullify the decision of Angeles City, Pampanga Regional Trial Court Branch 60 that acquitted the cop.

Dumlao was sanctioned with the following:

• Reclusion perpetua (40 years maximum) without the eligibility of parole and pay P350,000 in damages over kidnapping and homicide
• Reclusion perpetua and to pay P225,000 for kidnapping and serious illegal detention
• 30 to 35 years imprisonment for carnapping

Along with Dumlao, other suspects – Police Chief Master Sergeant Ricky Sta. Isabel and Police Executive Master Sergeant Roy Villegas, former National Bureau of Investigation agent Jerry Omlang, and Gerardo Santiago – were earlier charged for Jee’s kidnapping and killing. The Korean was killed inside Camp Crame, the Philippine National Police’s national headquarters, and was later cremated.

In June 2023, the local court convicted Sta. Isabel and Omlang for homicide and kidnapping. They were also convicted of carnapping, kidnapping, and serious illegal detention of Jee’s helper. However, the same court acquitted Dumlao after ruling that the prosecution failed to prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

The CA, in its decision, said it found that the local court gravely abused its discretion by “misapprehension of facts” when it rendered its decision on the case. The CA said the proceedings were “a sham and an apparent mockery of the judicial process” because the cop’s acquittal was a “foregone conclusion and in total disregard of the evidence.”

The CA added that the local court’s decision was in contrast to the witnesses’ testimony. The appellate court added that the RTC decision rendered the prosecution’s evidence “inutile” and blatantly abused its discretion “to a point so grave as to deprive it of its very power to dispense justice.”

“The Court of Appeals found the RTC’s ruling patently conflicting and irreconcilable with the facts it discussed in its Joint Decision. It erred in brushing aside the circumstantial evidence by the prosecution, which is sufficient by itself to support a judgment of conviction and could have galvanized Dumlao’s culpability,” the CA said.

Jee was strangled to death allegedly by the police assigned to the then-Anti-Illegal Drugs Group. His death became one of the biggest controversies the police faced since the launch of Duterte’s bloody drug war because the Korean died at the hands of cops. The Philippine National Police chief at the time was now-Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa.

According to the police, the South Korean businessman was killed to “silence” him about the alleged police extortion of Koreans in Angeles City. Jee’s death triggered the first suspension of the war on drugs back in early 2017.

After the Pampanga court absolved Dumlao, the prosecutors asked the court to reconsider its decision and convict the mastermind as well. However, the RTC denied the motion, prompting the prosecutors to file the certiorari petition with the CA. 

As a legal remedy, certiorari is used to review grave abuse of discretion or simply to seek a review of another body’s decision on a case. Acquittal in a case is final and cannot be appealed because it would result in double jeopardy, a constitutional rule that prevents a person from being under jeopardy of being punished twice for the same offense.

What the prosecutors did was to take the much harder path, which was to prove, through a certiorari petition, that the lower court erred in its ruling. The SC said this is among the exceptions that can be used to challenge an acquittal without violating the Constitution. 

“This is strictly limited to instances where there is a violation of the prosecution’s right to due process, such as being denied the opportunity to present evidence, when the trial is a sham, or when there is a mistrial that renders the judgment of acquittal void,” the High Court explained. 

Meanwhile, the conviction of Sta. Isabel and Omlang still stands because the certiorari petition only covered Dumlao, SC spokesperson Camille Sue Mae Ting confirmed to reporters. – Rappler.com