Gunman in UP slay case gets death

The gunman in the 1999 murder of a University of the Philippines (UP) journalism student was meted the death penalty yesterday by a Quezon City court, ending a five-year wait for the family of Niño Calinao.

In a 42-page decision, Quezo City RTC Branch 219 Judge Jose Paneda sentenced Resurreccion Ranin to die by lethal injection.

Ranin’s two other co-accused, Besmart al-Baddar Lauppah and Ommar Hadjula were acquitted and ordered released from custody after the court failed to establish their individual criminal culpability.

Ranin was also ordered by the court to indemnify Calinao’s family P500,000 in moral damages and P77,000 in actual damages.

Another accused in the case, Rizal Saari Lamsaani, was cleared by the court last December after the court found no sufficient evidence to prosecute him in the murder case.

The case based its decision on the testimony of UP security guard Lina De Castro who testified that she personally saw Ranin shoot Calinao, then 21, at close range with a caliber .45 pistol in the late afternoon of February 19, 1999.

Calinao with eight fellow members of the UP Volleyball Club were seated at a concrete bench at the Arts and Sciences pathway in front of the tambayan (hangout) of the Scintilla Juris fraternity when he was shot.

According to De Castro’s testimony, she saw Ranin shoot Calinao two successive times. Ranin, after the first shot, said De Castro, then shot Calinao again after two minutes and fired again after about three minutes. De Castro testified that Calinao was already crawling on the ground with his two hands clutching his stomach when Ranin fired his last two shots.

De Castro told the court that she was only about 2.6 meters away from Ranin when Calinao was shot. According to De Castro, she pulled the left sleeve of Ranin and told him to lower his gun. It was at this point that Ranin pointed his pistol at her but lowered it after learning that Calinao was already dead, De Castro testified.

De Castro said that Ranin and three other companions who were seated at a nearby bench then ran away and boarded an old model blue car with license plates IMF-700. Calinao was declared dead on arrival at the East Avenue Medical Center.

The court’s decision was welcomed by Niño’s 53-year-old mother, Nena, who told reporters that it was an answer to her prayers.

"Masaya kami dahil binigay ni Lord ang aming kahilingan para sa katarungan," she said teary-eyed while holding a picture of Niño close to her chest.

Nena was accompanied at the promulgation by members of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) led by its chair Dante Jimenez.

"Well, at last ay nabigyan na din ng katarungan si Niño Calinao. Though yung dalawa ay na-acquit, at least yung isa ay naparasuhan ng ating korte. Ang mastermind ay dapat tutukan ng ating kapulisan at ng National Bureau of Investigation. Hindi maaring gawin lang ito ni Ranin," said Jimenez.

Jimenez said Niño’s family will request the NBI to look into the angle that Niño’s death was not just a matter of mistaken identity triggered by random fraternity violence. In particular, Jimenez said Niño’s family will ask the NBI to help identify the mastermind or the one who ordered the murder.

"Sana makunsensya na yung mastermind," Nena Calinao added.

Meanwhile, according to Benjamin Paggao, lawyer for the Calinao family, they will urge investigators to conduct further investigation of the case to ferret out Ranin’s other companions, including the mastermind.

"We do not discount the possibility of the police authorities of conducting further investigation into this as to who are the other conspirators of Ranin and perhaps find the real mastermind behind this dastardly act," Paggao said.