Monday, October 30, 2006 Slow pace for case of burned girl, 6 By Oscar C. Pineda Sun.Star Staff Reporter
THREE years after her gruesome death, the parents of a six-year-old girl whom a playmate’s mother allegedly burned, bashed, and strangled in Lapulapu City are still waiting for justice to be served.
“Sukad nga gi-file ang kaso wa pa ko kaistorya ug wa pa kaistorya ang akong mga witness, nigawas na lang sa nasud ang usa ko ka witness (I and the witnesses have not even testified yet. One witness has went abroad already),” said Florenda Florito.
She and husband Clodualdo wished their daughter’s case be placed a little ahead in the list of cases to be heard by Regional Trial Court Branch 53 Judge Benedicto Cobarde during their schedule.
Reset
Being the ninth in the list, the hearing of their case always get reset because Cobarde allegedly could handle just three to four cases each day.
The last hearing was last Sept. 19 but it was postponed to Dec. 2.
In October 2003, two tanods found a badly injured Jessa Jari in Barangay Basak after suspect Rubilyn Roble left her for dead.
Burned from the chest up, her legs broken, the back of her head bashed, and strangled with a cord, she still managed to point at Roble as the one who attacked her.
Because of severe injuries, however, Jessa died hours after the barangay tanods rushed her to the hospital.
Responding policemen arrested Roble immediately and charged her with murder.
Homicide police investigator Geoffrey Baguio, who still attends hearings after his retirement the other year, said it is expected that the court always runs short of time.
Witnesses
He said hearings usually start at 9 a.m. Direct and cross examinations of suspects and witnesses usually take 40 minutes each that only a few cases can be accommodated for the day.
By 11:30 a.m., further direct and cross-examinations are re-scheduled, and all the other cases would also be reset, Baguio said.
Traumatized, Florenda said she still cries every time she remembers their second child.
She suffers from lack of sleep because she usually thinks of Jessa at dawn and could not go back to sleep after that.
After Jessa’s death, the Floritos moved from place to place.
From Sitio Kagudoy in Basak, Florenda, eldest daughter Rema Faith and youngest Redeem, went to Barangay Marigondon to stay with her sister-in law.
After staying there for two months, they moved to Cordova town.
Clodualdo, that time, was in the United States.
The family then moved to Siargao Island, where Florenda’s siblings are.
They only visit Lapu-Lapu City to attend court hearings.
Florenda said relatives kept on asking for Jessa’s things that she was forced to give away some.
Remind
But it made her cry seeing nieces wearing Jessa’s shoes and clothes because they reminded her of the child she lost.
For Clodualdo, the pain of losing Jessa was more hurting because he was not even able to attend her funeral because he was in Maryland, USA.
It took him seven months before he could return to the country because he was detained abroad for being an illegal alien.
Maryland jail officials placed him in a room, where he was constantly monitored for fear that he might hurt himself.
He was initially told that Jessa died of an accident, and he only learned that she died violently a month later.
“Wa ko kasabot sa akong gibati, tanan kontra nako (I could not fathom what I felt. It was as if everyone was against me),” he said.
When Florenda got pregnant, the family and moved to Lapu-Lapu again in June this year.
She and Clodualdo do not have jobs and they only rely on his sister in the US for help.
Florenda is now nine months pregnant and she still cries every time she remembers the bright child she once had.
Visits
“Tabi-an siya, maldita gamay, ug maayo ang otok (She was talkative, a little ratty and intelligent),” she mused when asked what qualities Jessa had that she can never forget.
And opting to remain with his family after what happened, Clodualdo said he has no more plans of going abroad.
Sometimes, the couple visits Sitio Kagudoy to see former friends and neighbors.
But Florenda said such visits brought pain, because she could not help but remember her daughter.
