Court convicts taxi driver for killing his passenger

The court yesterday sentenced a taxi driver to a maximum imprisonment of 17 years and four months for the killing of his female passenger at lunchtime on January 2, 2002.

Danilo Aquino, the driver of Richielda Taxi, was found guilty of killing Emerita Magno, who was dumped after being shot several times near the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center in upper Kalunasan area.

A habal-habal driver found the bloodied Magno, holding on to a tree at the edge of a cliff, and immediately reported the matter to SPO1 Celso Gabunada, a policeman residing in the area, specifically at sitio lower Kalunasan.

Gabunada, on his way to the scene, recalled that he met a Richielda Taxi (with body number 72) and remembered the driver to be black with a beard and a curly hair.

Magno was still conscious and gasping for breath when Gabunada got into her, and she was able to describe to the policeman that a driver of Richielda Taxi robbed and shot her. Her description of the driver matched with the taxi driver Gabunada saw earlier.

The victim was later taken to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center, and was transferred to a private hospital due to her critical condition. She died a few days later.

Gabunada also identified later a picture of a man from a newspaper, two days later, as the same man he saw driving the taxi. Another policeman, SPO1 Elmo Rosales, was able to trace the driver of the taxi, later found to have plate number GWA 826, which was found abandoned at General Maxilom Avenue. The taxi’s back seat also had some blood stains and a bullet hole.

It was only on June 23, 2004 that Aquino was finally arrested in Kawit, Medellin He denied the accusation, saying instead that Magno was with another man when they boarded his taxi on that day. He said that Magno and her male companion were arguing that resulted in the shooting right inside the taxi.

Aquino said he was ordered at gunpoint by the man to take the taxi to Kalunasan, where Magno was dumped, and to take him to Guadalupe where he disembarked.

While detained at the BBRC, Aquino saw a man, later known as Reynaldo Palma, whom he pointed at as the companion and attacker of Magno. The 39-year-old Palma, of Carbon Public Market, confessed in court that he was the perpetrator of the crime, adding that Magno was her cohort in an “illegal transaction” and that he forcibly took the money from her before shooting her.

The victim’s daughter, Maria Evelyn, however rebutted Palma’s testimony, insisting that she saw her mother at a mall taking a Richielda Taxi home alone.

Regional Trial Court Branch 18 Judge Gilbert Moises was not convinced of Aquino’s denial and the admission of Palma, who himself was later convicted for a separate case of murder. The judge said that all evidence pointed to “no other conclusion than that Aquino was the one who killed the victim.” — Jasmin R. Uy/RAE