CA upholds raps vs suspects in Ruby Rose Barrameda slay

The Court of Appeals has upheld the criminal charges filed against the former husband and uncle-in-law of Ruby Rose Barrameda  who went missing in March 2007 and was found dead two years later in June 2010.

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

 

In its decision, the CA Special Sixteenth Division junked a petition for review filed by Ruby Rose's estranged husband and suspect Manuel "Third" Jimenez III seeking 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 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 said a "preferred option" for the parties was to go into a "full-blown trial to ferret out the truth."

 

"Where evidence otherwise supports the charges, the accused shall not be heard to allege mere political harassment," the CA said.

Witness now missing

 

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.

 

Another suspect, Manuel Montero, the one who pointed authorities to the location of Barrameda’s body in 2009, had earlier requested to become a witness. He was also the one who positively identified another suspect – Robert Ponce – based on photographs secretly taken by National Bureau of Investigation agents of Ponce in his Isabela home.

 

It was also Montero who linked Jimenez Jr., his brother Lope and son Manuel III to the killing. Manuel III is the former husband of Ruby Rose.

 

Montero later recanted his statements and went missing since.

Framed up?

 

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 a 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.

 

In its latest ruling, the CA said Jimenez III's "bare allegations of injury to his family and to his rights fall short of the prerequisites" to issue a preliminary injunction stopping the criminal case against him.

 

The CA did not agree with Jimenez III's claim that the case should be dismissed because the body recovered from the crime scene did not belong to Ruby Rose. The CA noted that dental records had already shown the corpse to be that of Ruby Rose.

 

The CA also stressed that whether the remains belonged to Ruby Rose or not was "neither necessary nor indispensable in the finding of probable cause."

 

Jimenez III had also argued Montero's claims that a "busal" was placed in Ruby Rose's mouth and that she was tied with a rope ran contrary to a medical certificate showing she died of asphyxia. But the CA, in its ruling, said these "inconsistencies" are best threshed out in court. — RSJ, GMA News