Ex-cop in Zamboanga scribe’s killing pleads not guilty

CEBU CITY — A former Pagadian City policeman tagged as one of the two suspects in the killing of Zamboanga journalist Edgar Damalerio pleaded not guilty when he was arraigned the other day.

As the court had ordered, a new information was filed with the regional trial court in Pagadian City last week. The defense had argued that the city has jurisdiction over the case.

Defense counsel Honorato Hermosisima Jr., however, asked the court to release former policeman Guillermo Wapille, arguing that the new information filed is not actually new.

Except for the stamping, all else are the same, even the docket number, he said.

"The prosecution has failed to comply with what the court ordered it to do which caused the delay of the case," he said.

The delay, he said, has also affected his client who has been in jail since last Sept. 13.

Hermosisima said the court only ordered the prosecution to file the new information within five days from May 9.

The first information was quashed for the lack of people authorized to sign it.

Hermosisima invoked a rule that if there is no new information filed, the accused should be discharged.

But prosecution counsel Fernando Gubalane argued that there is already a new information filed with the Pagadian City RTC.

But the defense said the issue they were trying to bring up is the jurisdiction of the case, which explains why they moved that the new information be filed in Pagadian City.

The new information, he said, must bear a new docket number.

RTC Branch 19 Judge Ramon Codilla Jr., however, said the prosecution has substantially complied, thus the case must move on.

Wapille is one of the two suspects in the May 13, 2002 killing of Damalerio, an editor of the local paper Zamboanga Scribe and a broadcaster of radio station dxKP.

The Supreme Court approved the transfer of Wapille’s trial here from Pagadian city last February reportedly due to the continued threats on the lives of the witnesses and their families. — Freeman News Service