Man gets 14 yrs for murder

A former stone craft worker was yesterday convicted to a 14-year imprisonment for shooting to death a man in sitio Alaska, barangay Mambaling on September 23, 2001.

Regional Trial Court Judge Olegario Sarmiento junked the defense of alibi posed by Estanislao "Junjun" Cabiso Jr., saying the denial of the accused could not overcome the positive identification of an eyewitness.

Cabiso said it was not he who gunned down Diomino Camiguing at a dance party because he was at the time of the incident sleeping at the stone craft factory in Mandaue City where he also worked.

It was impossible for him to kill a person he does not know and it was physically impossible for him to do it because of the distance between his claimed place and the scene of the crime, Cabiso argued then.

But Judge Sarmiento ruled that Cabiso's alibi could not overcome the accounts of eyewitness Willington Lopez Jr., who positively identified Cabiso as the gunman. Lopez testified that he was only five meters from the crime scene where he saw Cabiso shot dead Camiguing.

Sarmiento said the prosecution's eyewitness vividly described the incident from the time Cabiso approached Camiguing until the moment he shot the latter dead.

In his decision, the judge said, "It is well-settled in our jurisprudence that denial if unsubstantiated by clear and convincing evidence is a negative self-serving assertion which deserves no weight in law."

Sarmiento said for alibi to prosper, the accused not only must prove he is not the culprit but also prove that it is impossible for him to be at the crime scene at the time of the incident.

Cabiso failed to present either documentary evidence to buttress his allegation or witness to corroborate his alibi that he was at another place when Camiguing was killed in Mambaling.