The arraignment of the alleged killer of a radio block timer and businessman  was deferred after defense counsel filed a motion to quash at the Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 2 on Wednesday, May 20, 2015.

Jennifer Chavez-Marcos, RTC Branch 2 Presiding Judge granted the request for deferment and gave Atty. Carlo Brian Carandang 15 days to file the motion to quash and the same period of time for the prosecution to file it’s comments/objections to the motion.

Assistant City Prosecutor Fara Ricarda B. Parras-Matuod, appearing for the public prosecution filed the information accusing Jovani Orenia y Celocia of the crime of murder for the shooting death in “broad daylight” of Engr. Maurito Ramirez Lim using a caliber .45 firearm on February 14,, 2015.

The death cerfificate of Lim showed that he died due to a gunshot wound. Lim expired a few hours after at the Celestino Gallares Memorial Hospital.

According to Rule 117 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure, the accused may move to quash the complaint or information at any time before entering his plea.

Orenia was allegedly identified by a lone witness, a security guard on duty at  radio station DYRD through 25 mug shots of selected arrested persons in Bohol who were on bail as the alleged trigger man after he turned his face twice towards the witness before speeding off on a Honda XRM motorcycle.

Several witnesses, friends of the victim also pointed to Orenia from “an array of pictures” from the police “rogues gallery” as the “suspicious male person standing across the steel fence of the Integrated Bus Terminal at Barangay Dao, Tagbilaran City apparently doing surveillance on the movements of Lim.

The witness in his sworn affidavit further said that he saw the face of Orenia twice, the first  “before the respondent reached his motorcycle, said respondent turned his face towards his direction and that he was able to see the latter’s face as the cloth covering respondent’s face was loosened and lowered . . .”.

The second was when the respondent boarded the motorcycle and again turned his face to the witness before speeding from the crime scene.

The witness told the police that after he heard a “single burst of fire” he saw the driver of the motorcycle outside the driver’s side of Lim’s vehicle “putting an undetermined caliber pistol at his right waist”.

Before the shooting of Lim, the witness “noticed a Honda XRM in the same direction with the maroon Crosswind suddenly made a U-turn and parked at the back of the Crosswind”.

According to the witness sworn statement that the “motorcyle was driven by a person wearing a ball cap colored white, with his face partly covered with a cloth colored light blue only his eyes and nose can be seen. . .”.

According to police investigators CCTV cameras installed in front of DYRD showed footages of Lim’s shooting by the lone gunman and “confirmed that the gunman captured in the CCTV camera was the same person ” the witness saw earlier and immediately right after the incident.

Orenia was nabbed during a drug buy bust operation after a massive police manhunt by Task Force Mau, 21 days after Lim’s murder. (CMV)