Student tagged as the gunman

CEBU CITY — Police have arrested and charged a marine transportation student for last Tuesday’s slay attempt on radio commentator Cirse "Choy" Torralba who was the Central Visayas campaign manager of Sen. Loren Legarda in her vice presidential bid.

The suspect, John Lloyd Ortiz, 21, was arrested in his uncle’s house in Pusok, Lapu-Lapu City after a witness identified him as the one who allegedly shot Torralba just as he had boarded his car after winding up his program on Angel Radio.

Ortiz was initially invited for questioning by agents of the homicide section and Criminal Intelligence and Investigation Bureau of the city police.

He, however, was formally placed under arrest and detained three hours later after Randy Libradilla, who was with Torralba in his car at the time of the incident, tagged him as the alleged attacker.

Ortiz was found positive for gunpowder nitrates in a paraffin test taken last Thursday afternoon. The following day, police formally charged him with frustrated homicide but Regional Trial Court Judge Ireneo Gako granted him P200,000 bail.

Defense lawyer Haide Acuña has questioned the credibility of the paraffin test and the legality of Ortiz’s arrest, claiming that her client was nabbed without any warrant.

She also disagreed with the police that the case is considered closed because she said the real perpetrator is still scot-free.

But homicide section chief Mario Monilar justified Ortiz’s warrantless arrest, saying it was done less than 72 hours after the incident.

Monilar said the police had personal knowledge because they took all the facts of the case when they conducted the investigation. He dared Acuña to file her complaint instead with the city prosecutor’s office and let the latter decide on the matter.

Torralba denied that the shooting had something to do with his alleged relationship with a 19-year-old girl who was reportedly Ortiz’s former girlfriend.

He said the girl was merely a friend and a member of Legarda’s campaign staff in the Visayas.

The police tried to bring Ortiz to the hospital for Torralba to see him but Acuña blocked the move, arguing that the proper procedure for identification of suspects is a police lineup.

In an interview with radio station dyLA, Torralba insisted that the attempt on his life had something to do with his job as a radio commentator and that the "love angle" was just a "secondary theory."

Acuña said Ortiz is innocent and promised to produce witnesses who were allegedly with him at a restaurant-bar at the north reclamation area when the incident happened. — Freeman News Service