CEBU - The Regional Trial Court yesterday dismissed the murder case against controversial policeman Adonis Dumpit for the shooting of jeepney driver Fedirico Tabon August last year after the complainant and the lone witness of the prosecution recanted their statements against the policeman.
The complainant herself, Florecita Panugan, withdrew the charges through an affidavit of desistance, which was also signed by 16-year-old Christopher Panugan, the prosecution’s sole witness.
They declared that Christopher, whose statement became the basis for the filing of the original complaint by the National Bureau of Investigation, never really identified Dumpit as the culprit. Dumpit’s name, they said, only surfaced later.
This coincided with Dumpit’s claim that because he lands in the news a lot, all shootings in F. Villa St., where Tabon was shot, and in nearby sitio Villagonzalo in barangay Tejero where he resides, get automatically blamed on him.
In their affidavit of desistance, the Panugans admitted that the statements issued separately by Franquilina Oliverio, who was present during the shooting, and Ernesto Roca, barangay tanod first on the scene, were the real versions of what actually happened. Oliverio and Roca’s statements were both in Dumpit’s favor.
In her affidavit, Oliverio said that while she did not actually see the shots being fired, she saw a man walking away from the direction of the gunfire and she was sure that when he passed by her a little later, he did not look like Dumpit.
She also said that Christopher was not at the scene when the incident happened and that the people he reportedly saw at the crime scene were actually never there.
For his part, Roca said he was having drinks with two friends—Benito Paer and Dioscoro Bacaron—when he heard gunfire coming from the M.J. Cuenco area. He immediately proceeded to the area and noticed a man “casually walking away from the direction where gun bursts came.”
The man was reportedly about 5’2,” wearing a blue baseball cap, a white T-shirt, denim shorts and carrying a dark-colored revolver.
Tabon was killed on August 27, 2004 at F. Villa Street.
Dumpit, a bodyguard of Cebu Mayor Tomas Osmeña, has figured in several shooting incidents and mauling- some of them even fatal- that resulted to criminal charges being leveled filed against him.
Dumpit, however, enjoys the trust and confidence of the mayor, as he goes after criminal suspects. — Jasmin R. Uy/JMO (THE FREEMAN)