Cops in Fernandez case ask to bail out

By NITZ ARANCON
Correspondent

A REGIONAL court would resume hearing a petition for bail by the suspects in the 2016 disappearance of Enrique “Eking” Fernandez III tomorrow.

Judge Emmanuel Pasal of the 38th branch of the Regional Trial Court would hear the petition filed by lawyer Noel Vedad on behalf of Senior Insp. Ereneo Ramirez, SPO2 Jojo Lim, SPO1 Alaindelon Tacubao, PO2 Sankula Hussein, PO2 Alejandro Ubanan and “police assets” (informers) Federico Guevarra and Rolando Udasco.

Ramirez, Lim, Tacubao, Hussein, Ubanan, Guevarra and Udasco were arrested by the National Bureau of Investigation in connection with the Oct. 23, 2016 kidnapping of Fernandez outside an e-Bingo establishment in uptown Cagayan de Oro. The broad daylight abduction was caught on surveillance camera, the reason why suspects were immediately identified.

The 33-year old Fernandez has remained a missing person to this day.

They were also charged with carnapping — the victim’s motorcycle, stolen on the day of the abduction, was never found.

Vedad said the two-day hearing would focus on his petition for the court to allow his clients to bail out.

Prosecutors have strongly opposed the petition as they presented three witnesses and evidence in court in previous hearings. They argued that the evidence were enough for the regional court to reject the petition for bail.

But Vedad said the testimonial evidence were “weak” and “mao nang akong ipadayon ang among petition for bail.”

The lawyer of the Ferdandez family, Armando Kho, said the case hearings on the kidnapping case slowed down because judges inhibited.

Kho said a court ruling on whether or not the accused should be allowed to bail out was raffled off from the sala of Judge Gil Bollozos of RTC Branch 21 to the sala of Judge Pasal.

He said Bollozos inhibited because the victim was a close friend of his niece.

Before the case landed on Bollozos’s sala, it was raffled off to Judge Henry Damasing’s sala but then, the latter inhibited.