CEBU, Philippines - The scheduled arraignment of the murder case filed against SPO1 Adonis Dumpit was moved after Regional Trial Court Judge Esther Veloso granted his motion to defer the arraignment yesterday.
The move came after Dumpit’s legal counsel, Pedro Leslie Salva, filed a motion last Friday to defer the arraignment pending resolution of their motion asking the court to reconsider its decision not to downgrade the case from murder to homicide.
Dumpit, who was charged for shooting dead a 17-year-old robbery suspect, Ronron Go, five years ago, is scheduled to be arraigned on March 22.
After granting the motion to defer the arraignment, Veloso also gave the Office of the Ombudsman at least three days to answer the motion for reconsideration filed by Salva to downgrade the murder charges against his client.
Salva said his client was merely doing his job when he responded to a robbery alarm and dealt with a hostile robbery suspect.
He explained the court should consider the findings of the Ombudsman of the Military and Other Law Enforcement Offices (MOLEO) that recommended to downgrade the case to homicide.
In April 2009, the anti-graft office filed murder charges against Dumpit in court for the death of Go.
However, the policeman filed a motion for reinvestigation to defer the issuance of an arrest warrant, which was granted by Judge Bienvenido Saniel, who previously handled the case but was later asked to inhibit from the case for alleged bias.
When Veloso was assigned to handle the case, she issued an arrest warrant against the police officer.
Salva said Veloso’s order recalling the reinvestigation done by MOLEO should be voided because the judge didn’t wait for the outcome of the reinvestigation.
According to Salva, the robbery victim had identified Go as the one who brandished a .38 caliber revolver during the heist.
He attached in his motion a copy of a court decision that convicted the suspected robber of charges of concealing a knife in 2003.
Also, in a hearing yesterday, two additional lawyers, Frank Malilong and Julius Ceasar Entice, joined the defense team and entered appearance before Veloso. — Jasmin U. Labaco/WAB (FREEMAN NEWS)