Tuesday, December 23, 2008 Court drops murder charges against Joavan but he stays in jail for other charges By Jujemay G. Awit Sun.Star Staff Reporter
THE Regional Trial Court (RTC) acquitted Joavan Fernandez of a murder charge that involved a jeepney driver in 2006.
This, since the prosecution relied mostly on circumstantial evidence and failed to ascertain the identity of the gunman that killed jeepney driver Panfilo Barinque, 49, RTC Judge Estela Alma Singco of Branch 12 said.
Joavan, son of Talisay City Mayor Socrates Fernandez, was charged along with three John Does.
Joavan’s acquittal was through an order that Singco released, following the defense’s pleading of demurrer to evidence citing the prosecution’s “failure to establish an iota of belief that accused committed the crime of murder.”
The prosecution presented four witnesses against Joavan.
Police Sr. Insp. Jason Mangaron, PO2 Joel Rosales and PO1 Erwin Carbonquillo testified receiving reports of the two shooting alarms dawn of Aug. 29, 2006.
2 shootings
The first incident happened at around 3:30 a.m. in Barangay Cansojong, Talisay City.
The victims in the Cansojong shooting incident were Barinque and jeepney conductor Timoteo Aleo, who survived the attack and is the victim in a separate frustrated murder case filed against Fernandez.
Aleo was brought to the hospital. It was there that he was confronted with Fernandez, who wanted to clear his name.
Aleo disclosed that the gunman was a certain “Joavan.” He also pointed to Joavan as the gunman, when the latter was presented to Aleo while at the hospital bed.
Aleo, though, recanted his statement and was never presented by the prosecution as a witness.
Carbonquillo testified that they tried to interview witnesses at the crime scene but each of them declined to testify in court.
Rosales testified that there were two witnesses who said that a gray Toyota Revo was parked near a waiting shed where Aleo and Barinque were staying. That was when Joavan allegedly started shooting them.
Witnesses
But none of those witnesses were willing to take the witness stand.
Barely 20 minutes later, a shooting incident also occurred in Barangay Dumlog, half a kilometer away from where the first shooting incident happened. The victims were Carlos dela Calzada and Edmund Ong. Witnesses saw a Toyota Revo nearby, raising suspicions that the assailants were the same ones in the Aleo and Barinque shooting.
Sr. Insp. Pinky Sayson Acog also testified that Joavan tested positive of gunpowder nitrates when she conducted the paraffin test on him. It meant Joavan fired a gun the last 72 hours.
The defense, though, stated in their demurrer to evidence that the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses merely established the fact of Barinque’s death as a result of a shooting incident in Barangay Cansojong.
The prosecution failed to present an opposition or comment to the said pleading.
“The fact of the crime has been duly proven. Only the identification of the criminal/s remains at issue,” Singco started her discussion of the case in a nine-page order.
The judge noted that the prosecution relied on circumstantial evidence in presenting the murder case against Joavan.
Circumstantial
“It is when evidence is purely circumstantial that the prosecution is much more obligated to rely on the strength of its own case and not on the weakness of the defense, and that conviction must rest on nothing less than moral certainty,” read Singco’s order.
The judge also said that the law requires positive identification of the accused as a perpetrator of the crime, not just an eyewitness account.
Eyewitness accounts were merely presented in court through testimonies of policemen.
“It would be hearsay as Aleo was not presented in court. The identification was never substantiated nor corroborated, and, therefore, unreliable, more so as Aleo retracted,” the order also read.
No gun was also recovered.
“The case has been reduced to nothing but mere suspicions and speculations... Accusation is not, according to the fundamental law, synonymous with guilt,” Singco’s order acquitting Joavan also read. (JGA)
