WHERE is Adonis Dumpit? He was not at his office when agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) 7 came around 3 p.m. yesterday to serve his arrest warrant for murder.
“Someone saw him in uniform at the vicinity of Camp Sergio Osmeña but when we arrived, he was no longer there,” Special Investigator Arnel Pura told Sun.Star Cebu.
Supt. Rex Derilo, Dumpit’s head at the Regional Security Agency Guard Supervisory Unit, received the warrant, issued by Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Esther Veloso last Friday, in Dumpit’s behalf.
“We are still hopeful he will give himself up although, right now, he can’t even be reached by mobile phone,” Pura said.
But in a text message to Sun.Star Cebu, Dumpit said he hopes the warrant will be recalled and that the court will hear his appeal to downgrade the case from murder to homicide.
Dumpit reiterated his stand that he was merely responding an alarm that resulted in the 2004 shooting of 17-year-old Ronron Go, who, Dumpit said, tried to shoot him first.
“Low morale mi kong maingon ani ang mga pulis. Tubag ka og alarma unya ikaw pa ang ma-priso,” he said.
Reached for comment, Janeth Badana, the private complainant in the murder case, said Dumpit’s failure to turn himself in makes him a wanted man and a fugitive from justice.
She urged local officials to help make sure that Dumpit is caught “in the name of justice” for her late son.
Protecting Dumpit?
She lamented how some quarters are working to prevent the policeman’s arrest by leaking the Aug. 12, 2009 resolution of the Office of the Ombudsman for the Military and Other Law Enforcement Offices (Moleo) which recommended that Dumpit’s non-bailable murder case be downgraded into a bailable charge of homicide.
“We were able to confirm that the Moleo never released that resolution. But somebody still managed to obtain a copy and give it to the court on the same day the warrant was issued,” Badana said in Cebuano.
RTC Executive Judge Meinrado Paredes warned authorities that they could be charged administratively for dereliction of duty if they refuse to implement the warrant.
The leak has caught the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas’ attention.
Mary Ann’s role
Assistant Cebu City Prosecutor Mary Ann Castro, said to be a close friend of the policeman, admitted she gave copies of the Moleo resolution to journalists and State Prosecutor Llena Ipong-Avila, her fellow resident prosecutor in Veloso’s court.
She found nothing wrong with it and stressed that Dumpit’s defense lawyer, Pedro Leslie Salva, furnished her a copy.
Assistant Ombudsman Virginia Santiago said the local anti-graft office did not know that the Moleo resolution even existed and that it already reinvestigated the charge while Ombudsman-Visayas Prosecutors Sam Malazarte and Alfred Oguis were still busy asking Judge Veloso to vacate Judge Bienvenido Saniel’s ruling which ordered one.
“Maybe somebody furnished the Moleo a copy of (Judge Saniel’s) order and they thought it was already final,” Santiago said.
She maintained, the Moleo resolution can’t affect the case by and in itself.
“It is all under the discretion of the judge and she has already made a ruling,” Santiago explained, referring to Judge Veloso’s Jan. 7, 2010 omnibus order granting the prosecution’s motion for reconsideration on Saniel’s judgment and vacating his previous ruling.
Paredes, for his part, said Dumpit may file a petition for bail and cite that “the evidence of the guilt is not strong.”
Motion needed
“There must be a motion to downgrade the crime charge for murder to homicide,” said Paredes. Otherwise, he added, the murder case stays and so does the warrant of arrest.
In the Aug. 12, 2009 resolution, the Moleo reversed itself and said there was no treachery in the way Ronron was killed, even if his fatal injury was in the back.
In her ruling, Veloso focused on the grounds Dumpit raised when he asked for reinvestigation.
Veloso said Dumpit’s claim that he was not given the chance to present his side in the preliminary investigation “is devoid of factual merit.”
“The failure of the accused Dumpit to file his counter-affidavit despite notice constitutes a waiver of his right to preliminary investigation,” Veloso ruled. (KNR/GMD/JTG)