Moises Padilla mayor, hubby acquitted from charges of illegal possession of firearms & explosives

Truth always prevails.

This was the reaction of Moises Padilla Mayor Ella Garcia Yulo, who and husband, Felix Mathias Segundo Feria Yulo III, were both acquitted from charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives.

Regional Trial Branch 46 Judge Edgar Tupas, in a 13-page decision dated Nov. 23, 2023 said he dismissed the cases filed against the two accused 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.

In 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 being granted bail by the court.

Just weeks after she was released from jail in April 2019, Yulo, who filed her candidacy for mayor of Moises Padilla, survived in an ambush, but not her brother and nephew, who were killed in the attack.

In October 2020, the six Moises Padilla policemen involved in the conduct of checkpoint that resulted to 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.

Mayor Yulo said she and her husband were “very happy” of the decision.

But Yulo admitted that she is also sad, because many people who had helped them, are already gone, especially her brother, Mark, and nephew, Michael.

If they are here, I am sure they will be happy, Yulo said.

She added that their acquittal indicated that “truth will always prevail.”* (Eugene Y. Adiong)