NBI AGENT SAYS: Arbet''s maid did not point to Favila as slay suspect

Another agent of the National Investigation told the court that the househelp of slain lawyer Arbet Sta. Ana-Yongco did not point to Michel Favila as the one who shot her on October 11, 2004.

Just like agent Arnel Pura, agent Jedida Hife testified that Baby Jane Lague pointed to a certain Bobby Gamana''s picture, which was faxed to the NBI office, after it matched with the cartographic sketch of the suspect whom Lague and fellow househelp Marifel Abadilla described to the bureau.

Hife said she interviewed Lague when the househelp went to the NBI office three days after Yongco was shot at her house. She said Lague''s identification was anchored on the fact that because the man was "good looking," Lague reportedly had focused her attention on the man when he emerged from Yongco''s office shortly after they heard a burst of gunfire.

The man whom Lague identified at the NBI office was not Favila or his co-accused in the crime, Nestor Carrol and Heracleo Rellastan. Abadilla will be placed on the witness stand today.

In his testimony earlier, Pura told the court that both Abadilla and Lague identified a picture of a man sent by the bureau''s office in Iligan City after a cartographic sketch of the suspect was forwarded to the NBI''s offices.

Gamana, the one in the picture faxed to the NBI office, then had a pending warrant of arrest for murder in Lanao del Sur and attempted homicide in Palawan.

However, four days after the two helpers executed affidavits pointing to Gamana, Pura said they reportedly recanted when the Integrated Bar of the Philippines took them from the NBI custody. The agent said even the NBI was not allowed entry into the meeting the IBP held with the two helpers.

Pura told the court that considering their recantation, he concluded that the two helpers consented that they be removed from NBI custody and placed under that of the IBP.

Later on, elements of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group arrested Favila upon identification of another witness.

Yongco was the private prosecutor in the parricide case against Ruben Ecleo Jr., the supreme master of the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association, of which Favila is a member. Ecleo''s charges stemmed from the murder of his wife in January 2002.

Favila''s right foot was amputated due to diabetic ulcer. He failed to attend yesterday''s hearing because of health reasons. - Joeberth M. Ocao/LPM