Regional Trial Court Branch 7 executive judge Simeon Dumdum Jr. found Roy Reroma, a resident of barangay Tuyan, guilty of stabbing to death Victor Manubag inside a vehicle in Poblacion, Minglanilla on October 22, 1995.
Dumdum rejected Reroma's arguments that he killed Manubag in self-defense because the victim attacked him. Reroma claimed that the victim was wounded when they grappled for Manubag's knife.
Dumdum said Manubag had cuts in his left palm and between his thumb and forefinger, which he would not have sustained if he attacked Reroma. The court gave much credence to the testimonies of a police medico-legal expert that the cuts revealed that Manubag was defending himself.
A witness, Narcisa dela Calzada, who owns a store near the crime scene, told the court that before the incident, Reroma approached Manubag who was sitting in front of the wheel of his vehicle.
Dela Calzada narrated that she heard the victim's daughter, who was seated at the backseat, shout "Ayaw tiyo! Ayaw tiyo!" referring to his uncle, Reroma.
The witness said after Reroma stabbed Manubag, he quickly proceeded to a motorcycle driven by his other brother-in-law who speeded away toward the south.
Instead of going home, the court found out that Reroma went to a cousin's house in San Fernando then to a house of a relative in Malabuyoc. He later surrendered to the police.
Reroma said while he and Manubag were grappling for the knife, they stumbled outside the vehicle, adding that when Manubag pulled him, the knife hit the victim's abdomen.
But Dumdum turned down Reroma's defense because Dela Calzada and the victim's child saw that it was Reroma who provoked the incident.
"Dela Calzada's vision was unhampered and the place where the incident took place was well lighted," Dumdum noted, adding that the victim's daughter was just behind her uncle when he attacked her father.
"And why would the victim's child plead with his uncle 'Ayaw tiyo! Ayaw tiyo!' - a plea that Dela Calzada also heard, if it was the girl's father who was attacking Reroma," Dumdum said.
Aside from the imprisonment, the court also ordered Reroma to pay Manubag's heirs P243,500 as moral damages, indemnity and actual damages for the death of the victim. - Rene U. Borromeo