{"id":11630,"date":"2025-06-20T00:55:07","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T23:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/?p=11630"},"modified":"2025-06-18T16:08:27","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T15:08:27","slug":"pastor-nathaniel-dodo-vallente-acquitted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/pastor-nathaniel-dodo-vallente-acquitted\/","title":{"rendered":"Pastor Nathaniel &#8220;Dodo&#8221; Vallente acquitted"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The second trumped-up charge of illegal possession of firearms against United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) Pastor Nathaniel \u201cDodo\u201d Vallente were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.karapatan.org\/media_release\/karapatan-lauds-recent-court-wins-vs-state-security-forces-ntf-elcac\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">dismissed<\/a> by the Regional Trial Court in Bohol on June 5, 2025, as the prosecution failed to establish facts beyond resonable doubt.<\/p>\n<p>Vallente was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.karapatan.org\/media_release\/karapatan-lauds-recent-court-wins-vs-state-security-forces-ntf-elcac\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">arrested<\/a> at his house in Bohol by elements of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group of the Philippine National Police (PNP-CIDG) on June 25, 2021, and charged with alleged illegal possession of firearms and explosives on the basis of evidence allegedly planted by the raiding team.<\/p>\n<p>Before his arrest, Vallente was a peasant rights advocate and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.karapatan.org\/media_release\/karapatan-lauds-recent-court-wins-vs-state-security-forces-ntf-elcac\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">served<\/a> as the adviser of Nagkahiusang Mag-uuma sa San Jose, a peasant organization in Bohol.<\/p>\n<p>Vallente was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.licas.news\/2024\/11\/06\/philippine-protestant-leaders-call-our-state-sponsored-persecution-of-church-workers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">released<\/a> on bail after the Regional Trial Court in Bohol granted a Demurrer to Evidence on September 6, 2024, resulting in the dismissal of the first trumped-up charges of alleged illegal possession of explosives.<\/p>\n<p>The court decision is also a <a href=\"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/advocacy\/individual-cases\/nathaniel-b-vallente\/\">result<\/a> of the tireless efforts of Pastor \u201cDodo\u2019s\u201d family, friends, UCCP colleagues and supporting organizations who spent almost four years demanding a fair trial and his immediate release from prison.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Nathaniel Vallente\u2019s case is featured in <a href=\"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/AMP-2024-Human-Rights-Report.pdf\">AMP\u2019s Human Rights Report from 2024 on page 21<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A case documentation can also be found <a href=\"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/advocacy\/individual-cases\/nathaniel-b-vallente\/\">here<\/a> on our website.<\/p>\n<p>Photo \u00a9 UCCP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The second trumped-up charge of illegal possession of firearms against United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) Pastor Nathaniel \u201cDodo\u201d Vallente were dismissed by the Regional Trial Court in Bohol on June 5, 2025, as the prosecution failed to establish facts beyond resonable doubt. Vallente was arrested at his house in Bohol by elements [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":11424,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[73,63,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aktuelles-en","category-human-rights-defenders","category-human-rights-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11630"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11633,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11630\/revisions\/11633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}