Dumpit pleads “not guilty” in driver’s slay

Controversial policeman SPO1 Adonis Dumpit pleaded “not guilty” to a murder charge, during his arraignment at the sala of Regional Trial Court Judge Douglas Marigomen yesterday.

The murder charge, read by the clerk of court, was for the killing of a jeepney driver on August 27, 2004 on F. Villa Street.

Dumpit, in his motion for reconsideration filed at the Office of the Ombudsman earlier, pointed out that complainant Florecita Panugan had withdrawn the charges against him through an affidavit of desistance, which was signed also by 16-year-old Christopher Panugan, the prosecution’s supposedly sole witness.

The Panugans’ affidavit, executed on May 13, 2004 through lawyer Pedro Leslie Salva, stated that they wanted “to put the record straight.”

The younger Panugan, whose statement became the basis for the filing of the original complaint by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), stated in the desistance document that Dumpit was not really identified as the gunman, and that the policeman’s name only surfaced later. 

The affidavit of the Panugans coincided with Dumpit’s statement that, considering his being named often in the media, he always gets the blame for all shootings on F. Villa Street, where the driver was shot, and at nearby sitio Villagonzalo in Barangay Tejero, where he has been a resident.

Dumpit said the Panugans, in their desistance, admitted that the statements separately issued by Franquilina Oliverio, who was present during the shooting, and Ernesto Roca, the barangay tanod who got first to the crime scene, were the true narrations of what actually happened.

Oliverio and Roca had executed affidavits, sent to the Office of the Ombudsman-Military during its investigation into the incident, practically clearing Dumpit from the crime.

Oliverio stated that, while she did not actually saw who fired the shots, she saw a man walking away from the source of the gunfire. She said that the man, holding a gun, passed her by and she was certain that it was not Dumpit.

Oliverio also said that Christopher was not at the scene at the time, and that the people the teenager claimed he saw were never there.

Roca, for his part, said that he was having drinks with two friends—Benito Paer and Dioscoro Bacaron—when he heard a gunfire coming from the M.J. Cuenco Avenue area. He went there to check and noticed a man “casually walking away from the direction where gun bursts came.”

He said the man was about 5’2,” wore a blue baseball cap, a white T-shirt, and a denim shorts, and was carrying a dark revolver.

Meanwhile, the court said that the pre-trial of the case will be held next month. —Jasmin R. Uy/RAE