Lapu-Lapu court to hear Boniel motion on Friday

CEBU, Philippines - A Regional Trial Court in Lapu-Lapu City has set for Friday, July 28, the hearing of the motion to suspend proceedings filed by Bohol Provincial Board Member Niño Rey Boniel in relation to his parricide case.

Acting Presiding Judge Altone Miralles of RTC Branch 57, in his one-page order, scheduled the hearing at 8:30 a.m.

Boniel, who was accused in the alleged killing of his wife Bien Unido Mayor Gisela Boniel, filed a motion asking the court to suspend further proceedings and to defer the issuance of warrant of arrest and commitment order of the parricide case filed against him.

To support his motion, he alleged that when the resolution of the parricide case was released by the Lapu-lapu City Prosecutor’s Office, he did not receive any copy of it.

Simultaneous to the release of the resolution should have been the release of the information which was filed before the court, he added.

“That the instant filing of the information without affording the right of the respondent to file motion for reconsideration of the findings of the panel of the prosecutors traverses present rules and Department of Justice circulars affording the respondent right to elevate the findings of the panel of the  prosecutors,” Boniel’s motion read.

Boniel said under Department of Justice (DOJ) Circular No. 223 as amended by DOJ Circular 70, he supposedly had a 15-day period to file a motion for reconsideration before the Lapu-Lapu City Prosecutor’s Office.

If motion for reconsideration would be denied, then he would have another 15 days to file a petition for review before the secretary of Justice.

The provincial board member’s camp also contended that the Lapu-Lapu City Prosecutor’s Office has no jurisdiction over the case because based on the accounts of driver Randel Lupas and Riolito “Etad”Boniel, they allegedly saw the body of Gisela on a boat that was duly stationed on the shores of Bohol province.

Niño Rey, Lupas, Riolito, and six others have are facing parricide charges over the disappearance and presumed death of Gisela.

Niño Rey allegedly shot his wife last June 7 at a dive camp in Bien Unido town in Bohol and the body was said to have been dumped in the seawaters off Lapu-Lapu City in Cebu. (FREEMAN)