Assassin after Janelle, sis of Ramgen claims

Claiming her elder brother was a victim of an unfortunate circumstance, Gail Bautista-Furuyama said the masked assassin who shot and stabbed dead Ramgen Bautista inside his room in October was out to kill his girlfriend, Janelle Manahan.

Manahan’s counsel, however, described the respondent’s claim through a counter-affidavit she filed Tuesday morning as “impossible,” explaining that prior to the October 28 break-in at the Bautista house in BF Homes,  Parañaque City, there had been two failed attempts on Ramgen’s life.

Bautista-Furuyama said the “killer shot [Janelle] first although my Kuya Ramgen was already in the line of fire of the killer.”

“My Kuya Ramgen came to her aid where he was shot in the process,” she said in a counter-affidavit she filed in the office of Parañaque Assistant City Prosecutor Leah Roma. “Very clearly this is not premeditated murder of my Kuya Ramgen, as the target of the killer was Janelle.”

Janelle’s claim that she heard Bautista-Furuyama talking to her sister Maria Ramona “Mara” Bautista, who was also inside Ramgen’s room during the shooting, was “preposterous,” the respondent said, as she questioned the victim’s capability to listen to the alleged conversation.

“The impact of the bullet on her head is traumatic and her consciousness is definitely affected. She even allegedly heard my voice from the other end of a cell phone in that condition, and this is simply preposterous and merely a concocted statement,” Bautista-Furuyama said.

Determining the attacker’s motive based on who was shot first was, however, “beside the point,” said Manahan’s counsel Luke Espiritu, because Gail’s involvement in the plot to kill Ramgen was included in the testimonies of witnesses.

Espiritu said that prior to the shooting, witnesses accused Roy Francis Tolisora and Michael Nartea of attempting to kill Ramgen on October 11 and 12.

In the first attempt, the lawyer said both men backed away from doing the job when they saw a picture of Sen. Ramon Revilla Sr., Ramgen’s father, inside the house.

A day after the first try, the suspects attempted to complete the job when they tried knocking on Ramgen’s bedroom door, Espiritu said, quoting witnesses’ accounts.

“When no one answered the door, Ramgen picked up his gun and cocked it near the door. When he opened it, no one was outside,” the lawyer added. “He relayed this to Janelle because they were chatting online.”

The transcripts of the exchanges were saved by Manahan on her computer, and are part of the evidence her lawyers submitted to the prosecutor’s office, Espiritu said.

Bautista-Furuyama was also identified by other respondents as among those who planned Ramgen’s murder, the lawyer added, thus bolstering their contention that she was a co-conspirator in the case.

At the very least, her counter-affidavit could easily be trumped by witnesses’ accounts, the lawyer  aid.