Ex-mayor Arsenio in the news again

A FORMER TOWN MAYOR accused of killing a broadcast journalist has landed in the news again, this time for angrily flinging the case of his sunglasses at a photographer who was taking his picture.

Ex-mayor Alfredo Arsenio of Lezo town in Aklan was apparently irked because news cameramen were taking his video and photographs while he was waiting for his court hearing at the Cebu Hall of Justice yesterday, according to an account by the Cebu Daily News. Arsenio is facing murder charges for allegedly shooting Aklan radio broadcaster Herson Hinolan in November 2004.

The Cebu Daily News item may be read here.

Just last February, Arsenio was again in the news after Cebu journalists spotted him eating with his jail guards at a local restaurant after a similar court hearing. The local jail personnel were relieved from duty for violating standard procedures in the handling of detained prisoners. Prisoners who are brought out of their jail cells for court hearings may not go anywhere else without a court order.

That February incident was chronicled by several Cebu newsmen who had attended the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism’s Visayas leg of the Beyond Maguindanao: Media Murders in the Philippines training seminars, where Hinolan’s case was extensively discussed. The accounts may be read here.