Suspect No. 2 in Nepomuceno grandson case faces raps

The Marikina Prosecutor’s Office has found probable cause to indict a man accused of shooting the grandson of comedian Willie Nepomuceno and his friends earlier this year.

In a four-page resolution dated Feb. 14 but released only recently, Assistant City Prosecutor Von Sto. Domingo said the frustrated murder and attempted murder case filed against Arestes Ronar Cruz may now be considered “submitted for resolution” after he failed to appear for the scheduled preliminary investigation on Jan. 24 and Feb. 7.

Cruz, who remains at large, was earlier tagged by another suspect, Mark Bercilla, in the shooting attack on Sean Gabriel Nepomuceno and his friends Sherwin Malit, Franc Rayven Jocson and Angello Abistado at the corner of Bayan-bayanan Avenue and Bugallon Street in Marikina City on Jan. 9.

Bercilla was arrested after he was positively identified by Abistado as one of the four men who fired at their group. The attack left Jocson and Sean Gabriel Nepomuceno wounded while Abistado and Malit were unhurt.

Bercilla, on the other hand, has since been released on bail. Both he and Cruz come from well-to-do families, police said.

According to them, Bercilla lives in the affluent area of Barangay (village) Marikina Heights, which is home to businessmen, retired generals and lawyers. Cruz, meanwhile, has a lawyer-brother who is a former barangay official, police added. The two other suspects in the shooting have yet to be identified.

“Upon evaluation of the evidence presented, probable cause exists to indict Cruz as a conspirator of respondent [and now accused] Bercilla in the commission of the offenses of frustrated murder in relation to Section 5(j) of Republic Act No. 8369 and attempted murder as the essential elements of the offense are all present in the case at bar, coupled by the circumstance that he was positively identified by the complainants as one of their assailants in the subject incident,” Sto. Domingo said in the resolution approved by City Prosecutor Jason Antonio Amante.

The resolution also recommended that Cruz be indicted for grave threats under the Revised Penal Code after the latter pointed a gun at Malit’s face and asked him: “Do you want to die? I can kill you now.”

The victims were eating at a burger stand in Barangay Marikina Heights shortly before 3 a.m. on Jan. 9 when four men got out of a car and fired at their group in what authorities said was a case of mistaken identity.