ILIGAN City Mayor Celso Regencia walked out of detention Monday, January 30, after a Quezon City regional trial court found no basis for indicting him for the slay attempt of a former lawmaker.
Regencia, a retired police officer, was released from the Iligan City Jail in Tipanoy village around 8:30 a.m., Vice Mayor Jemar Vera-Cruz, who was among those who fetched him to freedom, told the Inquirer by phone.
They then motored towards the City Hall where Regencia spoke before local government employees during the customary flag-raising rites every Monday.
A video released by Regencia’s supporters showed him recounting to employees the hardships he had to bear while in detention like the occasional visits of cockroaches inside his small cell.
After bowing out of the police service, Regencia was elected mayor in 2013, on a vow to institute an iron hand to stamp out corruption in the local government and the proliferation of illegal drugs and illegal gambling operations.
More than a year in office, Regencia was accused of masterminding the December 11, 2014 ambush on a convoy of then three-term Iligan City Representative Vicente Belmonte who was widely thought to stand against him in the 2016 mayoral race. Belmonte survived the ambush while three of his aides were killed and three others were wounded.
For that, Regencia faced multiple murder and multiple frustrated murder raps. Regencia has denied being complicit in the attack which Belmonte said had something to do with politics.
By August 2015, a regional trial court in Initao, Misamis Oriental, ordered the arrest of Regencia who then went into hiding. He surfaced mid-October to file a candidacy for mayor and subsequently turned himself in to authorities. He has since discharged the duties as chief executive from his detention cell, even holding meetings among key officials there.
In the 2016 polls, Regencia garnered an overwhelming mandate for a second mayoral term while in detention, and his camp able to capture almost all elective seats in the City Council.
From the Initao court, the case was transferred to a Quezon City regional trial court presided by judge Ferdinand Baylon who heard Regencia’s petition for bail in August last year.
Several weeks back, Iligan was agog with news of Regencia’s expected freedom after the Department of Justice (DOJ), upon prayer for reinvestigation, found no evidence linking him to Belmonte’s ambush after which government prosecutors formally asked the court to have its case withdrawn.
Lawyer Rafael Benedictus, a former counsel for Regencia and now Iligan city administrator, lauded Baylon’s decision to absolve him of the crime.
Benedictus told the media that apart from the motion of government prosecutors, Baylon’s decision also used information bared before the court in the course of the bail hearings.
On Monday, a triumphant Regencia motored around the city before proceeding to a thanksgiving Mass at the Cathedral organized by his supporters. He was also scheduled to visit the grave of his mother.
Regencia thanked the city’s religious leaders “for continually praying for me during those difficult times.”
In all, Regencia stayed behind bars for over 16 months.