Truck driver  gets 40 years for killing cop and friend

The truck driver, who killed policeman Roman Lucero and the police officer’s friend at Tres de Abril Street five years ago, was sentenced to 40 years imprisonment by the Regional Trial Court yesterday.

RTC Branch 18 Judge Gilbert Moises ruled that the prosecution successfully proved the guilt of 40-year old Laurencio Gensis, married of 12th Street, South Harbor, Port of Manila.

Gensis was indicted for murder in two counts for the shooting to death of Lucero, who used to be a homicide investigator, and his friend Randolf Anthony Sorronda in February 19, 2003.

The court has rejected the alibi of Gensis that he was in Manila when the crime took place.

But the court turned down his denial because he failed to prove the physical impossibility of him to be at the scene of the crime taking into consideration the distance in question.

Judge Moises gave more credence to the testimony of the lone eyewitness – Rebecca Betonta – the 33-year old common-law wife of Sorronda, who testified that she did not forget the face of the gunman who went to their house.

Lucero and Sorronda were watching a TV show inside the house of the latter at 12:20 p.m. when an armed person arrived and shot them, one after another, killing both victims on the spot.

Betonta said she even begged to Gensis not to shoot her common-law husband, but the accused did not listen to her and instead pumped seven bullets to the victim.

Lucero failed to use his 9 m.m. pistol at that time.

Gensis said he was driving a ten-wheeler truck in Manila, where he was arrested by the policemen on Valentines Day of 2004, or almost a year after the crime.  Judge Moises cited a Supreme Court ruling that take judicial notice that a plane travel from Manila to Cebu only takes an hour, therefore it is not impossible for Gensis to do the crime.

“In one case, the court even ignored the evidence to prove such impossibility as insufficient, how much more in the case at bar where no attempt was made to prove the same,” Judge Moises said. —Rene U. Borromeo/NLQ