The Court of Appeals has approved the Department of Justice’s decision to file a murder case against businessman Lope Jimenez over the gruesome death of his nephew’s wife, Ruby Rose Barrameda, whose remains were found in a drum dumped off Navotas City in 2007.
In a ruling dated Sept. 21 and released last week, the appellate court’s Fourth Division dismissed for lack of merit Jimenez’s petition for certiorari claiming that Justice Secretary Leila de Lima erred in including him in March 2010 on the list of those to be indicted for Barrameda’s murder.
“In the case before us, no wanton exercise of the faculty conferred upon the secretary of justice can be be ascribed against [her] when she acted through her impugned resolutions,” the appeals tribunal’s 16-page decision, written by Justice Eduardo Peralta Jr., stated.
The other division members, Justices Noel Tijam and Francisco Acosta, concurred with the ruling.
Aside from Jimenez, the DOJ had also charged with his brother Manuel Jr., Barrameda’s estranged husband Manuel III, and other suspects Eric Fernandez, Lennard Descalzo, Robert Ponce and erstwhile state witness Manuel Montero.
Jimenez, a fishing magnate, denied being involved in any conspiracy to murder Barrameda and called Montero’s confession as one coming from a “polluted source,” considering that Montero later recanted his sworn statement revealing the location of the drum and identifying the other suspects involved in the murder.
“A sufficient ground was established to engender a well-founded belief that the persons mentioned by Montero, including petitioner, were indeed probably guilty of the crime imputed against them… A trial is intended precisely for the reception of prosecution evidence in support of the charge,” the court ruled.
Thus, the court said Jimenez’s claims—that he did not have a motive to kill Barrameda, that he could not have taken part in any conspiracy since he was at odds with his brother and nephew; and that Montero was only getting back at him for Montero’s dismissal from employment and failed extortion attempts—matters which should be ventilated before the trial court.
Barrameda was abducted on March 14, 2007. According to Montero, she was strangled, her corpse was placed in a drum, into which concrete was poured, and it was placed inside a rectangular steel container and again cemented. Montero said the container was loaded into a tug boat and dumped about 15 minutes away from the shore.
The police, acting on information from Montero, retrieved the container from the Manila in June 2009, ending more than two years of searching by family and friends, led by her sister, former actress and model Rochelle Barrameda.