MANILA — A local court in Laoang, Northern Samar granted the motion to quash the murder charges against community journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio but denied the same plea of human rights defender Alexander Abinguna.

A Motion to Quash is a formal pleading filed by an accused in a criminal case to challenge the validity of a complaint or information before entering a plea.

In a resolution dated November 6, 2025, the Regional Trial Court Branch 21 noted the “glaring disparity and difference regarding the identity of the person named in the complaint and the person arrested.”

The name indicated in the complaint was “Frenchie Armando Cupio,” and not Frenchie Mae Cumpio who is detained at the Tacloban City Jail.

In its resolution, the court reiterated that the identity of the accused in every criminal case “is so (sic) much important as the life and liberty of the person at stake.”

The court denied the same motion to Cumpio’s co-accused Alexander Philip Abinguna, noting that the latter was identified in the complaint. Abinguna, a human rights defender in Eastern Visayas, is detained at the male dormitory of the Tacloban City Jail.

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The two are among those charged with murder and attempted murder in relation to an incident on October 18, 2019 in barangay Sumuroy, Palapag, Northern Samar.

Both Cumpio and Abinguna, along with three others, were arrested on February 7, 2020 during simultaneous raids in Tacloban City. They were part of the so-called Tacloban 5.