Makati court to issue verdict on DFA exec’s slay

The Makati City regional trial court (RTC) will issue today a verdict against the alleged killers of Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Assistant Secretary Alicia Ramos, some 15 months after the brutal slay.

Judge Maria Cristina Cornejo, who scheduled the promulgation of judgment at 8:30 a.m. today, will decide on whether accused Roberto Lumagui, the alleged mastermind, Joel Ablay and Michael Cenil are guilty of robbery with homicide after a trial that lasted over a year.

All three, along with a fourth suspect identified as Jun Maricar who has yet to be captured, are tagged behind the murder of the ranking DFA official who was killed inside her house on Boyle street, Barangay Palanan, Makati City on April 24, 2005.

"I hope we will get a conviction because the evidence and the testimonies we have presented have, to our minds, proven guilt beyond reasonable doubt," Senior State Prosecutor Emmanuel Velasco of the Department of Justice (DOJ) told The Star yesterday.

Velasco is the lead prosecutor in the case against Lumagui, Ablay, and Cenil who were former houseboys of the Ramos family.

"The hottest place in hell is reserved for those who bite the hands of those who feed them," he said. "Hell can’t wait for them."

The accused had claimed they planned on merely scaring Ramos and her sister Leticia and did not intend to kill.

Lumagui, who surrendered a month after the slay, was tagged by the two other accused as the brains behind the robbery.

The Ramos murder shocked the diplomatic community last year after she was hogtied, blindfolded, and strangled using a towel.

The slain DFA official’s sisters, including Ester Ramos Bailey who suffers from mental problems, was initially pointed to as having a hand in the killing.

However, investigation eventually concluded that they were not involved in the killing of the 64-year-old diplomat.

Velasco said the Ramos sisters will attend today’s promulgation of judgment along with DFA officials and employees.

Ramos was the Philippine ambassador to Singapore in 1995 when overseas Filipino worker Flor Contemplacion was hanged for the murder of fellow Filipina maid Delia Maga despite appeals from the Philippine government.

She was also former Philippine ambassador to New Zealand, and was the one who worked to establish a Philippine Embassy in Romania in 1990.