Accused in killing of nursing student insists on innocence

CEBU, Philippines - Remember the shooting to death of a graduating nursing student over a mobile phone last March 2008?

The three accused, in a court hearing yesterday, insisted that they are innocent of the crime.

Karl Marx Carticiano, Aivan Barabat and Mark Anthony Labitad were charged for robbery with homicide in relation to the killing of Ruby Jade Magpatoc Ruba, a 20-year-old nursing student of Cebu Doctors’ University.

Ruba was shot along Gov. Roa St. in Barangay Capitol, Cebu City three weeks before her graduation ceremony.

In yesterday’s hearing, William Carticiano, a coast guard personnel and brother of one of the accused, presented what he said was a result of an investigation conducted by a team from his office.

According to him, their own investigation showed that the three accused had nothing to do with the killing. He explained that they have found witnesses who can attest to this.

“We conducted the investigation to give justice to both the accused and the late victim Ruba,” Carticiano said when asked why they conducted their own investigation.

He said it was the investigative section of the Coast Guard who made their own probe separate from that of the National Bureau of Investigation and the Homicide Section of Cebu City Police Office.

Judge Ramon Daomilas of Regional Trial Court Branch 11 asked Carticiano why the Coast Guard did the investigation, when the crime happened on land and far from the sea waters.

Carticiano replied that they were only seeking the truth and trying to save lives. Moreover, Carticiano executed only last Wednesday an affidavit stating that his brother is innocent.

Ironically, Vicente Ruba, the father of the victim, is also from the Philippine Coast Guard Headquarters District Central 7.

In an interview yesterday, Ruba lamented that they still failed to get the justice that they have been seeking. He accused the Philippine Coast Guard of being biased, as he was not even informed that they were conducting an investigation on his daughter’s killing.

He appeared surprised over what transpired in the courtroom yesterday. Fighting back tears, he vowed to confront the supposed Coast Guard investigators about this matter.

Lawyer Noel Archival, counsel for Barabat, was also dismayed over what happened in yesterday’s proceedings. For Archival, it would have been already clear that the three accused would be acquitted, so there was no need to present the Coast Guard investigation.

Last March 6, 2008, Ruba died after refusing to turn over her cellular phone to robbers. She was working on a case study she had to finish in order to graduate during the time of the attack.

Ruba was from Macrohon, Southern Leyte and temporarily lived in an apartment on B. Rodriguez St., Cebu City. — THE FREEMAN