Santos’s return from abroad works in her favor: defense

HOMICIDE suspect Bella Ruby Santos did not fly out of Cebu with her British national boyfriend, Ian Charles Griffiths, to escape.

This was the comment of defense lawyer Julius Caesar Entise on the prosecution’s theory that Santos left the country.

Prosecution lawyer Inocencio dela Cerna said they just stipulated the fact in court that an airline manager certified a document, showing Santos and Griffiths booked a flight to Singapore on Feb. 9 last year, the day when six-year-old Ellah Joy Pique was found dead below a cliff in Barili.

The airline manager, who was the prosecution’s ninth witness, was not able to take the witness stand yesterday during the hearing on Santos’s petition to bail.

Santos is facing trial at the Regional Trial Court Branch 6 in Cebu City for allegedly killing Pique last year.

“Basically they were trying to establish our client hurriedly… got out of the country,” Entise told reporters. “It’s not evidence, (it is) insinuation.”

Next hearing

“There was an overt act of both accused to escape,” dela Cerna said.

He said they are glad the defense admitted that Santos and Griffiths did go abroad.

He said they will prevent Santos from posting bail because of the possibility she will try to elude authorities.

The next hearing was set on Nov. 19, with the prosecution presenting National Bureau of Investigation 7 agent Arnel Pura as its last witness.

For the other defense lawyer, Rameses Villagonzalo, he said the prosecution’s
stipulation “favors” them.

He said Santos returned after she learned her home in the City of Naga was raided by the police in March last year.

“Kay gibuhatbuhatan man siya’g sala, gi-raid iyang balay, nibalik siya (Because she was accused of a crime she didn’t commit, because her house was raid, she returned to Cebu),” Villagonzalo said.

“Would it be done by a guilty person? Dili, buhaton ra na siya sa inosente nga tawo (No, it would be done by an innocent person),” he said.