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By NITZ ARANCON
Correspondent

THE lawyer of architect Rey Galua, listed as a “prime person of interest” by the police that is investigating the Dec. 2, 2017 killing of a state university president here, is looking into the possibility of turning Senate President Aquilino Martin Pimentel III and Sen. Joseph Victor Ejercito into defense witnesses.

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Former Misamis Oriental provincial prosecutor Arturo Ubaub, Galua’s lawyer, said Pimentel could testify that his client was with him in Marikina City on Dec. 7, 2017.

If Pimentel’s testimony is not enough, Ubaub said, Sen. Ejercito could corroborate that Galua was in Marikina that day, and that the architect and the senator were together after his client was sworn in as a member of the administration PDP-Laban.

Ubaub said Galua’s participation in the Dec. 7, 2017 PDP-Laban oath-taking in Marikina is proof that the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group lied in a sworn affidavit that its officers met with Galua at a golf course in uptown Cagayan de Oro that day.

In the affidavit, according to Ubaub, the CIDG claimed that its members were invited by Galua to his house for coffee and that he showed him his guns there.

He said the CIDG affidavit was the basis for a search warrant that was issued by a Gingoog-based judge against Galua.

The court warrant was used by the CIDG in raiding Galua’s house in Jan. 9. Police arrested the architect after finding a cache of firearms and grenades in his uptown Cagayan de Oro home.

CIDG subsequently charged Galua with illegal possession of firearms and   explosives.

Ubaub said he was contemplating on asking Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre to make prosecutors ask Pimentel and even Ejercito to shed light about Galua’s claim that he was in Marikina that day.

In a 90-page motion he submitted to the justice department in the hope of convincing it to order a preliminary investigation into the Galua case, Ubaub used the statements of Agusan del Norte Gov. Ma. Angelica Rosedell Amante-Matba, Buenavista Mayor Norbert Pagaspas and Erwin Daño to dispute the CIDG claim.

Matba, Pagaspas and Daño signed affidavits in favor of Galua.

According to Ubaub, Matba and Pagaspas, a former broadcaster, also took their oath as PDP-Laban members together with Galua on Dec. 7, 2017.

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