CA upholds parricide case vs Jimenez

Years after Ruby Rose Barrameda disappeared in 2007, only to be found two years later inside a steel drum dumped into the waters off Navotas City, her estranged husband may finally be charged with her murder.

Last week, the Court of Appeals’ Special 16th Division upheld a 2012 decision of the Office of the President (OP) which ordered the indictment of Manuel Jimenez III as it denied for lack of merit his petition for review.

In the ruling dated May 2, 2012, and the July 4, 2012, resolution in which it affirmed its earlier decision, the OP sustained the Aug. 11, 2010, resolution of the justice secretary who recommended the filing of a complaint against Jimenez III for parricide and his uncle, Lope J. Jimenez, for murder.

The victim’s husband later went to the appellate court, alleging that the OP committed an error of law and acted with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction when it sustained the finding of probable cause against him for parricide based on the testimony of the star witness, Manuel Montero, among others.

Jimenez III also reasoned that he could not be held criminally liable because the body recovered off Navotas was not his wife’s. At the same time, he pointed out that in February, Montero recanted his statements linking him and the other accused to Barrameda’s death.

His arguments, however, were thumbed down by the court in the ruling penned by Associate Justice Pedro Corales.

According to the court, the OP did not commit any grave abuse of discretion in upholding the resolution of the justice secretary. It noted that the Department of Justice “considered several circumstances that would constitute [Jimenez] III’s motive for Ruby Rose’s killing.”

The court also found no merit in his allegation that the body recovered in the sea was not that of his wife, noting it had been “identified through dental records, clothing and accessories and identification in this manner has been historically been accepted without a qualm in this jurisdiction.”

The appellate court further said that Jimenez III’s allegations that his criminal prosecution would [cause] injury to his family and his rights “fall short” of the requisites for the court to issue a preliminary injunction.

Where evidence otherwise supports the charges, “the preferred option is for a full-blown trial to ferret out the truth,” it stressed.

When Rochelle Barrameda-Labarda, Ruby Rose’s sister, learned on Tuesday night that the court had upheld Jimenez III’s indictment for parricide, she cried.

“Because of course, that was what we had all been waiting for,” she said in a phone interview Wednesday.

She added that even her mother did not at first believe the news which came from a lawyer who was privy to the information. “She asked me if it was true,” Labarda said.

According to her, since Justice Secretary Leila de Lima recommended the filing of charges against Jimenez III, the latter has been filing motion after motion to prolong the legal process.

“I hope the case will continue to progress,” she said, adding that because of the development, she and her family would have a “super Merry Christmas.”

Barrameda disappeared in the middle of a custody fight with her husband for their daughters in 2007. Her body was found in 2009 based on information given by Montero who linked the victim’s husband, father-in-law and uncle-in-law to her death. With Kristine Felisse Mangunay