Trial on case of slain security guard begins
The defense and prosecution panels to the May 4, 1999 slaying of 40-year-old Filipino worker Cesario B. Valerio began questioning key witnesses on the stand following the opening arguments both panels presented before the Superior Court yesterday.
The ongoing trial accommodated witnesses from the Department of Public Safety who had responded to the emergency assistance calls that fateful day in May of last year.
The case will be tried before a seven-member jury.
DPS officer Joaquin San Nicolas testified that he received a call from a certain Noel Cabrera at around 12:29am requesting for police assistance for his friend who was reportedly mauled.
At around 12:58am of the same day, Mr. San Nicolas disclosed he received another call, this time from an unidentified caller, complaining about a disturbance around the Aquarius Tower area in Chalan Kanoa.
A police officer on duty, Paulus Tasei, also told the court he was dispatched to respond to the emergency call at the three-story Courtney Plaza building in Chalan Kanoa.
In answer to the prosecution’s questions, Mr. Tasei informed the court he found an individual lying on his side at the 2nd floor of the building. “He was trying to get up but I advised him to keep still. I saw his left eye, it was black and blue and swollen,” said the officer.
Mr. Tasei narrated that he arrived at the scene of the crime with two other individuals, his immediate supervisor and a Filipino national, Dante E. Santiago. Mr. Santiago was tasked by the police officers to ask the victim, in Filipino language, what had happened.
“Mr. Santiago was able to learn from the victim that there were three men who came in the area and hit him with a man-made ashtray,” he said.
The police had found a man-made ashtray in the scene of the crime, along with a pair of sewing scissors, a flashlight, a belt, and beach sand scattered all over the place.
Meanwhile, the next two witnesses, DPS traffic enforce Misael Romolor and detective Wayne Stephen, shared to the court information they had about another incident of attack involving a foreign worker and three alleged local suspects at Aquarius Hotel on May 9, 1999.
After hearing from the first four witnesses, Superior Court Judge Timothy Bellas issued a gag order and sealed the courtroom trial of one of the three suspects linked to the crime Eugene B. Repeki Jr., 21.
Two other minors, Thomas Ch. Basa, 17, Anthony B. Magofna, 18, face charges of second degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and aggravated assault and battery of Mr. Valerio.
The victim was a security guard at Courtney’s Plaza Commercial Building in Chalan Kanoa. Severely beaten, the police rushed him to the Commonwealth Health Center and was later on transferred to St. Luke’s Hospital in Manila where he eventually died due to severe head injury.
An investigation conducted by Police Capt. Delbert Sablan revealed that all the three men took turns in hitting Mr. Valerio with a two-feet ashtray which caused a fracture in his skull.
Capt. Sablan interviewed Mr. Magofna, one of the suspects, on March 9, 2000 who admitted his participation in the crime.
Based on Mr. Magofna’s story, he and his brother-in-law Mr. Repeki as well as his cousin Mr. Basa went out drinking on the evening of May 3, 1999.
When they left the bar, they urinated at the side of City Outlet building where Mr. Valerio, who was then at the second floor of the establishment, picked up a fight as he shouted at them.
The three men rushed to the building and Mr.Magofna claimed he saw Mr. Valerio holding a pair of scissors and threatened to stab them. They then fought back by hitting Mr. Valerio with a two-feet ashtray and took turns in kicking him.
