The case against the three death convicts, Nonilo Arile, a former Western Police District policeman, Carlos Parian, and George Beltran, goes to automatic review by the Supreme Court.
But Branch 76 Judge Monina Zeñarosa acquitted two others, Arthur Tamzon and Francisco Mortel, an employee of the victim’s uncle.
Zeñarosa said Arile, Parian and Beltran conspired in kidnapping-for-ransom a pupil of the Immaculate Concepcion School in Cubao, on Oct. 19, 1994. The boy was then six years old. A sixth suspect, Rodolfo El Mundo, died while the case was being tried, while a seventh suspect, Renato Gasmen Jr., turned state witness.
Only last month, Branch 219 Judge Jose Catral-Mendoza found Arile guilty of stabbing to death a fellow inmate, Dante Viray inside the Quezon City Jail on Sept. 10, 1999. The judge handed down a 40-year-jail term.
The boy was walking with family house help Joseph Gumba along Lantana Street in Cubao when a car with several men stopped beside them. One of the car’s passengers asked Gumban for directions. But before the latter could answer, the suspects pulled his ward inside the car and announced that it was a kidnap.
The kidnappers called the boy’s parents hours later to demand a P10-million ransom, only to realize that the boy’s parents did not have the money to pay them. The next day, they freed the boy in Congressional Village without his parents paying anything. The suspects were subsequently arrested by agents of the now defunct Presidential Anti-Crime Commission (PACC).
The boy positively identified the suspects in court. Gasmen, who acted as the gateway car’s driver, tagged Arile as the mastermind. The judge said the suspects could only offer a weak alibi that they were in their homes when the kidnapping happened. She also rejected their claims that their arrest was illegal, saying that they failed to raise it early on.
Meanwhile, a 28-year-old tinsmith was sentenced to die by lethal injection by the Marikina City Regional Trial Court for killing a policeman in 1998.
Convicted of robbery with homicide by Judge Reuben dela Cruz, of Branch 272 was Noel Malolos, 28, of Esguerra Baltazar St., Pinagbuhatan, Pasig City. He was also ordered to pay the family of victim SPO2 Reydante Bulan P120,000 in indemnity.
Court records showed that Malolos, along with five others, killed Bulan on Aug. 27, 1998 along Don Mariano Marcos Highway, Marikina.
The uniform-wearing victim reportedly hitched a ride on a jeepney when the suspects suddenly opened fire at him. The vehicle was then negotiating a hump.
When the victim was sprawled on the floor of the jeepney, the suspects approached the other passengers and divested them of their valuables. They also took the policeman’s wallet, wristwatch, ring and service firearm.
Malolos was arrested during follow-up operations while his companions remain at large.
The court ruled that testimonies of the prosecution witnesses proved beyond reasonable doubt that Malolos was guilty as charged. – Sheila Crisostomo