Dela Victoria slay: Ocampo's lawyers hit judge's decision

The lawyers of murder convict Marcial Ocampo recently alleged that Regional Trial Court judge Ireneo Lee Gako Jr. was not the one who made the decision that found their client guilty of killing Bantay Dagat project director Elpidio "Jojo" dela Victoria.

Ocampo was sentenced 20 to 40 years imprisonment after he was found guilty beyond reasonable doubt for the killing of Dela Victoria in San Roque, Talisay City last April 12.

Lawyers Hector Fernandez and his son, Vicente II, said it could be another person who penned the decision, which explained why Judge Gako, in the promulgation of the decision last September 18, first announced that his decision was supposedly 120 pages but he reduced it to only 21 pages.

"(The defense counsels) started suspecting that the assailed judgment...was made by someone else, but was simply modified by the Honorable Judge, as it is improbable for a judge preparing a decision to overshoot...100 pages, when 21 pages are enough [sic]," Ocampo's lawyers argued.

Ocampo reportedly cried foul for being given a pre-cooked judgment that his counsels then described as biased because several material points in their evidences were "unintentionally omitted" to focus only on the "improbable testimonies" of some prosecution witnesses.

Some court personnel however rejected the allegations of the lawyers, and they said that Judge Gako was very strict about writing decisions.

"Mao man gani na nga kanunay lang malangan ang mga decision sa kaso diha ni judge Gako kay siya man g'yod ang mangunay sa pag-type sa decision. Imposible nga lain na hinoong tawo ang iyang pasuwaton," one of them said.

Fernandez claimed that Gako failed to give weight to the testimonies of the policemen that they saw Ocampo at the Police Provincial Office in Lahug until 3 p.m. of April 12. Gako did not give weight also to the testimony of barber Andrade Comision that Ocampo was at the barbershop at past 3 p.m., the lawyer complained.

Ocampo's lawyers assailed that Gako accepted the "improbable testimonies" of prosecution witness Joselito Gerali who said he saw the gunman-40 meters away from him-wearing brown leather shoes while running away after shooting Dela Victoria.

Gerali was among the witnesses who positively identified the brown leather shoes, recovered from Ocampo's house, as the one the gunman wore.

Gako ruled that Ocampo failed to overturn the evidences of the prosecution, and the four witnesses who positively identified him as the man who shot Dela Victoria and escaped on a taxi, driven by Roberto Goc-ong.

Since Gako has already retired, the motion for reconsideration of Ocampo's lawyers would be resolved by RTC executive judge Simeon Dumdum Jr. - Rene U. Borromeo/RAE