CA: Raps vs. suspects in Ruby Rose Barrameda murder a go

Parricide charges can now be pursued against the former husband and uncle-in-law of Ruby Rose Barrameda, who went missing in March 2007 and was found dead in June 2009.

This was after the Court of Appeals Special Sixteenth Division upheld its December 2013 decision junking a petition for review filed by Ruby Rose's estranged husband and suspect Manuel "Third" Jimenez III.

Ruby Rose is the sister of former beauty queen Rochelle Barrameda.

In its latest ruling, the appeals court said charges can still be pursued against the suspect even if Manuel Montero, the one who pointed authorities to the location of Barrameda’s body in 2009 and identified the suspects, later recanted his statements. Montero has since gone missing.

“A recantation does not necessarily cancel an earlier declaration. As with any other testimony, it is subject to the test credibility and should be received with caution," the CA said in a three-page ruling penned by Associate Justice Pedro Corrales.

"No rule or doctrine requires previous testimony to be presumed false merely because a witness now says so," the CA added.

In his plea, Jimenez had sought to reverse a May 2, 2012 decision and a July 4, 2012 resolution of the Office of the President regarding the case.

The two Palace rulings had supported an Aug. 11, 2010 resolution of the Department of Justice that recommended the filing of parricide charges against Jimenez and his uncle Lope Jimenez.

In its December 2013 ruling, the CA said no "exceptional situation, including, that of persecution rather than good faith prosecution, appear here."

"There is no showing of any grand design or other manifestation of ill will that unduly impelled the finding of probable cause herein assailed," it added.

The CA had said a "preferred option" for the parties was to go into a "full-blown trial to ferret out the truth."

Ruby Rose was reported missing in March 2007. Her body was found two years later stuffed inside a cemented drum dropped in the waters off Navotas City.

The Jimenez family had earlier claimed they were being "framed up" in the Ruby Rose killing, saying there might be people trying to get back at the business interests of the family.

The Jimenezes are engaged in several businesses, including fishing and agricultural companies. The family owns farmland and a poultry farm in Cavite, as well as a number of gasoline stations.

Third’s uncle, Lope, also owns the Buena Suerte Jimenez (BSJ) Fishing and Trading Inc. in Navotas, where Ruby Rose’s remains were found sealed inside a steel box submerged off the fish port. — JDS, GMA News