‘NBI forced me to implicate Laoag mayor in slay’

A Laoag City councilor, who earlier had implicated the city mayor in the Feb. 2 fatal shooting of the vice mayor, is again singing a different tune.

This time, councilor Melvin de la Cuesta claimed that the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) forced him to sign a "prepared" affidavit implicating Mayor Michael Fariñas in the death of Vice Mayor Jimmy Chua supposedly so he would not included as an accused.

De la Cuesta, assisted by his legal counsel, lawyer Marlene Damasen, made this claim in a fifth affidavit he submitted to a Department of Justice panel headed by state prosecutor II Esperanza Rosario the other day.

After Chua’s killing, the councilor told police that a hired killer, whom he identified as a certain Steve, shot Chua in front of the Eagle’s Nest restaurant in Laoag City before dawn of Feb. 2.

De la Cuesta later retracted his original affidavit and tagged Fariñas as the one who accidentally shot Chua in front of him and Superintendent Joel Pagdilao inside the restaurant.

Fariñas denied the accusations, claiming that an Ilocos political clan was behind the councilor’s retraction.

In the new four-page affidavit, De la Cuesta, however, claimed that he did not voluntarily go to the NBI last Feb. 21.

"I was forced by the NBI to execute an affidavit before they gave me a room at the NBI compound on Taft Avenue in Manila. Because of the pressure, I was forced to sign the affidavit that the NBI had prepared," he said in his affidavit.

"They told me that my life (was) in danger if I (would) go out. They told me that I (would) not be included in the charges in connection with Vice Mayor Chua’s killing if I (would) execute an affidavit implicating Mayor Fariñas as Vice Mayor Chua’s killer," he added.

De la Cuesta said the NBI also promised to bring his family outside the country after he had executed the affidavit implicating Fariñas.

"They also told me that there (were) other witnesses and if I (would) not issue an affidavit that day (Feb. 21), they (would) no longer include my testimony and I (would) become a co-accused of Mayor Fariñas. I was told that the charges (would) be filed on Feb. 23, that (was) why I issued an affidavit so that I (would) not be included as an accused in the Chua killing," he further claimed.

De la Cuesta said he decided to escape from the NBI compound on Feb. 22 because he was feeling so much pressure to sign the affidavit that the agency had prepared.

"I went that night (to) my sibling’s house in Quezon City. I was shocked when I arrived at the house of my sibling and saw the NBI agents there. They told me that they followed me and I (had) to return to the NBI. They then placed me and my family in a safehouse in Cavite City on Feb. 23," he said.

On the night of Feb. 24, De la Cuesta said several NBI agents arrived in the Cavite safehouse and pressured him to sign the affidavit.

"They were accompanied by a lawyer and police officers (whose names I did not know). They were also with my wife. The case was filed last March at the DOJ and to my surprise, they included me (as an) accused," he said.

De la Cuesta said he filed his fifth affidavit to prove that the supplemental sworn statement dated Feb. 24 which the NBI prepared for him "(is) not true and I was only forced to sign it after being pressured by the NBI."

De la Cuesta claimed having received threatening text messages, one of which stated, "De la Cuesta massacre coming soon."

When asked by lawyer Jay Flaminiano, Fariñas legal counsel, De la Cuesta said he believes that the threats against him were not coming from Fariñas.

For her part, lawyer Sandra Coronel, legal counsel of Chua’s family, said the Feb. 24 affidavit which De la Cuesta issued to the NBI is more credible than the other statements he had given.

She said De la Cuesta’s Feb. 24 affidavit "is more credible because it jibes with the physical evidence that the NBI (had) gathered which proves that the shooting occurred inside the restaurant and not outside... as claimed by De la Cuesta in his first three affidavits. De la Cuesta will continue to be a conspirator in the Chua murder case," Coronel said.