The decision has been handed down, as scheduled, on "The Case of the Pilfered Documents at the National Library":
In Moral's case, the court ruled that the prosecution failed to establish that there was "unlawful taking" of the documents stored in Vaults 1 and 2 of the FAD's rare manuscripts section.
The former FAD chief, who was charged with taking 51 items from the vaults to which she had access, claimed the allegedly missing documents were inadvertently placed with her personal belongings when she moved to the Catalogue Division Office in July 1993 [...]
Since the prosecution had fallen short of producing the required quantum of proof, the court said Moral was presumed innocent and must therefore be set free.The judgment seems reasonable, but it seems unlikely that the one found guilty acted alone. In the meantime, many documents remain missing. I've complained before that there is no copy of the Philippine Declaration of Independence on government websites (but I did find one on another site), and have since been informed that the original could not be produced during the centennial. Now, almost 110 years after Filipinos declared independence from Spain, I wonder whether this unique document could have been one of those stolen over the years...
"This leaves the court with no option but to acquit Moral for insufficiency of evidence, at the very least, on reasonable doubt," said the court.
