Damalerio Case: Court accepts prosecution's evidences

The prosecution panel in the murder case filed against dismissed policeman Guillermo Wapille who is accused of killing of Pagadian City journalist Edgar Damalerio has convinced Regional Trial Court judge Ramon Codilla to accept all submitted evidences.

Codilla said "after a judicious assessment of the evidence presented by the prosecution as well as the comments on the formal offer of evidence by the defense, hereby resolves to admit all the documentary exhibits formally offered by the prosecution as part of the testimony of the witness presented."

Earlier, the defense lawyers headed by Honorato Hermosisima Jr. claimed that the prosecution panel composed of state prosecutors Nicolas Sellon, Fernando Gubalane, and Dixon Fuentes have failed to establish the guilt of their client, but instead committed irreconcilable inconsistencies as to the identity of the gunman.

One of the prosecution's witnesses was Edgar Ongue, who claimed that he was certain that it was Wapille who killed Damalerio because he was together with the journalist when Wapille gunned him down while the victim was driving his vehicle in Pagadian City on May 13, 2002.

But the defense panel, who is set to present its first witness in today's continuation of the trial, said Ongue's testimony in court, are riddled with irreconcilable inconsistencies regarding the identity of the gunman and the inherently improbable narration on the circumstances before, during, and after the killing of Damalerio.

Hermosisima said that because of Ongue's unreconciled testimonies, it only bolsters the contention of the accused that he is merely being made a scapegoat and sacrificial lamb to mask the failure of the authorities to identify the real killer.

Damalerio used to be the editor of the Zamboanga Scribe in Pagadian City and a broadcaster of radio station dxKP. But the prosecution has failed to establish the possible motive why Damalerio was killed.

The trial of the case was transferred to Cebu because of fear that the safety of the witnesses would be in danger if the trial was to be heard in Mindanao. One of the supposed prosecution witness, Edgar Amorro, was killed. His killers have remained unidentified until now. Ongue also alleged that Wapille's relatives had threatened him after he refused to accept their alleged bribe in exchange for declining to testify in court. - Rene U. Borromeo