New probe ordered on Orate slay

MANILA, Philippines - Justice Secretary Leila de Lima has ordered the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to reinvestigate the killing of Noel Orate.

De Lima issued the order after a closed-door meeting with the victim’s son Noel Jr. and members of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption yesterday.

She also ordered the Bureau of Immigration to place suspect Allan Robes on its hold departure order (HDO) list.

De Lima said the reinvestigation and the HDO were pursuant to the order of Judge Luis Maceren of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 218 that granted the motion filed last Feb. 27 by Orate‘s family to defer the arraignment of Robes.

Orate’s counsel Doy Bringas said De Lima ordered the NBI-Death Investigation Division to finish its investigation within 30 days and determine whether police investigators made a mistake in recommending the filing of homicide charges against Robes.

“We don’t believe that this is a case of homicide,” he told reporters.

Bringas said Robes could have been charged with murder instead of homicide had the Quezon City police attached the Scene of the Crime Operation report and autopsy report regarding the shooting.

He said former congresswoman Nanette Castelo-Daza should be also investigated.

Orate, the estranged boyfriend of Daza was shot at the latter‘s home in Maningning street, Barangay Teachers’ Village East in Quezon City.

Robes and the Daza family maintained that the former shot Orate in self-defense, claiming the latter held them hostage. They said Orate went to the Daza residence to get back at the former lawmaker.

But Orate’s children noted that their father was shot five times, adding that it was Daza who summoned their father.

Noel Jr. also raised doubts on the evidence gathered by the Quezon City Police District’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit.

Robes’s lawyer Alfredo Villamor, meanwhile, claimed the victim’s family could not ask for a reinvestigation, saying it is a right of the accused. He added that his client has no intention to flee from the case filed against him.

However, Maceren’s ruling cited a Supreme Court ruling which states that the “private complainant can move for a reinvestigation subject to and in light of the ensuing disquisition.”

4 of 5 gunshot wounds fatal

Four of the five gunshot wounds that Orate suffered were fatal, Raquel Fortun, forensic pathologist of the Department of Pathology at the UP College of Medicine said.

“Based on evidence I know, there were five gunshot wounds. Three did not exit, two exited. Three hit the heart, one the aorta, and one on the left side of the body. Frontal. Close range contact fire. No defensive na gunshot wounds,” Fortun said in an interview with The STAR.

“It’s hard to say what exactly happened. It‘s still inconclusive as to how he was shot in terms of whether he was standing or lying down or there was a struggle. I still do not know the other pieces of evidence,“ she said.

“(What is) Conclusive  is he was shot at close range. He was shot five times. All his wounds were fatal except for one and he was shot at close range,“ she added.

Noel Jr. and his sister Noelleen said the findings of the forensic pathologist, confirms that her father was murdered.

“How can they say that it was a hostage crisis when all the shots were fatal and fired at close range,“ Noel Jr. said.

“We lost our father. We are angry but we will continue to fight for our father... We want justice,” he said. – With Sandy Araneta