Tuesday, November 13, 2007 CA upholds death v. 2 ABB rebels
THE Court of Appeals (CA) has affirmed the murder sentence against two suspected members of the Alex Boncayao Brigade (ABB) for the killing of an 81-year-old businessman and his driver in Quezon City in 1995.
In a decision penned by Associate Justice Ramon Bato, the CA Sixth Division affirmed the ruling of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court (RTC) that meted them the capital punishment of death to petitioners Ruperto Lopez Jr. and Orlando Bondalian Jr.
However, the CA reduced their death penalty sentences to reclusion perpetua without possibility of parole because of the repeal of the death penalty law.
Lopez and Bondalian were likewise directed to pay the heirs of Leonardo Ty, owner of Union Hicari Fertilizer, and driver Nestor Encarnacion damages amounting to more than P2.7 million.
The appellate court gave weight on the credible, straightforward and convincing testimony of the prosecution’s witness, Delea Villanueva who recognized the suspects.
It said there was nothing in the records that would show that the police merely suggested the accused-appellants’ identities to Villanueva.
“Even assuming Arguendo that the accused-appellants' out-of-court identifications were tainted with irregularities, Delea's subsequent identifications of them in court cured any flaw that may have attended it,” the CA ruled.
Lopez and Bondalian contested the verdict of the Quezon City RTC, claiming that the police only prodded Villanueva to point at them as the suspects.
Bondalian also said he was arrested only because he was a member of the cause-oriented group Kongreso ng Pagkakaisa ng Maralitang Lungsod.
Villanueva testified that she was in a jeepney at that time when three men boarded it and told the driver to follow a blue Mercedes Benz. She also saw three men in front of a sari-sari store nearby when the vehicles were stalled in traffic.
The three men in the jeepney then alighted and fired at the car at the corner of Tandang Sora and General Avenue in Quezon City. When the six men saw that the car's passengers were dead, they shouted “Mabuhay ang ABB.” The men then escaped aboard another jeepney. (ECV/Sunnex)
