Barber testifies Ocampo had haircut at the time of murder

The lawyers of SPO1 Marcial Ocampo surprised the prosecution yesterday when they presented a barber who said he was still fixing the policeman's hair in his barbershop at Tres de Abril Street, Cebu City until the time Elpidio "Jojo" de la Victoria was killed in Talisay City.

"Bakak na," barber Andrade Comision told Regional Trial Court judge Ireneo Lee Gako Jr., referring to the charge that it was Ocampo who gunned down Dela Victoria inside the compound of his house at barangay San Roque, Talisay at about 3:30 p.m. last April 12.

Comision said it was impossible for Ocampo to kill Dela Victoria because the accused went to his barbershop for a haircut shortly before 3 p.m. and had it done only at about 3:20 p.m.

For this reason, Comision said he believed the policeman had nothing to do with Dela Victoria's killing considering the distance between Tres de Abril in Cebu City and Talisay City.

Private prosecutors Fritz Quiñanola and Rameses Villagonzalo, and some people who attended the hearing yesterday, were surprised of the barber's testimony because he was the same barber that the media had quoted earlier to have denied Ocampo's alibi that he had a haircut that afternoon.

The court granted the request of the private prosecutors to conduct the cross-examination of Comision when the hearing resumes in the afternoon today. They wanted to destroy the testimony of the barber that he performed the haircut in the afternoon of April 12.

"Ah, sayon ra na i-counter," said Villagonzalo in an interview after the hearing.

SP01 Delfin Bontuyan of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, for his part, said the same barber already denied-and it was even reported in the media-Ocampo's alibi of having a haircut at his barbershop on April 12 because the haircut was done on Monday, April 10, or two days earlier.

Before Comision was presented, defense counsels Hector Fernandez and son Vicente II presented four policemen who testified that they saw and even talked to Ocampo inside the Cebu Provincial Police Office in Sudlon, Lahug at 2:30 p.m. of April 12.

The policemen confirmed that Ocampo, who used to be the finance officer of the Minglanilla police station, was at the CPPO that afternoon to get the combat pay of 20 policemen assigned in Minglanilla.

But these policemen, Erson Digal, Rebecca Cañoneo, Pablo Enolpe and Ely Cumayas, clarified that they could not say also that the prosecution witnesses earlier presented were lying in their statements that it was Ocampo who killed Dela Victoria.

Judge Gako then asked repeatedly the defense witnesses if Ocampo has a motorcycle, and they all replied that they did not see Ocampo driving a motorcycle.

The prosecution proffered that Talisay City could be reached in a few minutes by motorcycle through the South Coastal Road so it would not be entirely impossible for Ocampo to commit the crime, even granting that he was still at the CPPO at 2:30 p.m. - Rene U. Borromeo