MANILA, Philippines – Officials of the University of the Philippines and law enforcement agencies were accused yesterday of being on a “fishing expedition” at the expense of members of the Sigma Rho fraternity.

Bonifacio Alentajan, lawyer of graduating law student Juan Paolo Fajardo, one of the students facing administrative charges for the death of senior public administration student Cris Anthony Mendez, said UP officials, the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) were on a fishing expedition directed against his client and other members of his fraternity.

“I am not talking about the institution but the people overseeing the case,” Alentajan said after Judge Jose Paneda of Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 220 postponed yesterday’s hearing on the petition for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction for the administrative proceedings of the student disciplinary tribunal (SDT).
Paneda suspended the hearing until all respondents had been formally informed of the pending petition.

Alentajan also bewailed what he claimed was his client’s trial by publicity, saying it violated Fajardo’s right to due process.

Marvic Leonen, UP vice president for legal affairs, said the petition was the second filed against the university and its officials by Sigma Rho members.

He said it was probably meant to intimidate the university to abandon the search for truth in the Mendez case.

The first petition was filed by former National College of Public Administration and Governance student council chair Ariel Paolo Ante who asked the court to have his preventive suspension lifted.