• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
“Truth always prevails,” said Moises Padilla Mayor Ella Garcia-Yulo after she and her husband, Felix Mathias Segundo Feria Yulo III, were acquitted from charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives.
In a 13-page decision dated Nov. 23, Regional Trial Court Branch 46 Judge Edgar Tupas dismissed the cases filed against them due to “insufficiency of evidence”.
Tupas said the prosecution failed to establish the presence of all the elements of the crime of illegal possession of explosives and firearms ascribed to both accused.
On Dec. 19, 2017, then Vice Mayor Yulo and her husband were intercepted and arrested by the police at a checkpoint in Moises Padilla for alleged illegal possession of firearms and explosives.
Yulo insisted then to the police that the firearms, explosives and illegal drugs were planted.
The Yulo couple spent seven months in jail before they were granted bail by the court.
Weeks after she was released from jail in April 2019, Yulo, who then filed her candidacy for mayor, survived an ambush, but her brother and nephew were killed in the attack.
In October 2020, the six Moises Padilla policemen involved in the conduct of checkpoint that resulted in the arrest of the Yulo couple were dismissed from service by the National Police Commission for grave misconduct and grave irregularities in the performance of duty.
Yulo said she and her husband were “very happy” of the decision.
Still, Yulo admitted that she is also sad because many people who had helped them, are already gone, especially her brother, Marc, and nephew, Michael.
“If they are here, I am sure they will be happy,” Yulo said. | GB
