EDITORIAL – No justice for Ruby Rose

Maybe she committed suicide.

With the principal witness recanting his statement and now missing, and with no established motive or mastermind, Ruby Rose Barrameda may never get justice.

On Aug. 15 this year, Judge Edwin Larida Jr. of the Malabon Regional Trial Court Branch 170 dismissed the parricide case filed against Barrameda’s estranged husband, Manuel “Third” Jimenez III, as well as the murder charge against her father-in-law Manuel Jr. and two other defendants, Lennard Descalso and Norberto Ponce.

Barrameda, the sister of a beauty queen, went missing in March 2007 after she visited her children at the home of her husband’s family. It took two years before a suspect, Manuel Montero, turned state witness and led authorities in June 2009 to an area in the sea off Navotas where he had buried Barrameda’s remains. The remains, identified through Barrameda’s dental records, were in a drum sealed with concrete, and placed in a steel case that was also filled with concrete.

Montero testified that Descalso, the Jimenez family’s security officer, had strangled Barrameda inside their company compound. Montero tagged Barrameda’s husband Manuel III as the mastermind, and also implicated her father-in-law Manuel Jr., uncle-in-law Lope Jimenez, driver Eric Fernandez and operations employee Ponce in the killing.

In February 2013, however, Montero recanted his testimony. A month later, he disappeared without being cross-examined in court. Judge Larida, in dismissing the parricide and murder cases against the Jimenezes, cited Montero’s retraction and said probable cause was not established.

Barrameda’s dismayed relatives, on the other hand, point out that Larida disregarded the affirmation of probable cause by the Office of the President, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court.

Neutral observers can only wonder if no weight can be given by the courts to the fact that if Montero had been lying, Barrameda’s remains would never have been found. Barrameda’s relatives say they aren’t giving up on their legal battle as they note that Jimenez III has not been arraigned. If they proceed with their quest for justice, the first thing they will likely do is to petition for a new judge.