Is Bien Unido Mayor Gisela Boniel dead or just in hiding?

“My wife Gisela has all the reasons to hide or even feign death because she is neck-deep buried in debts of several millions,” claimed her husband, Bohol Provincial Board Member Niño Rey Boniel, the primary suspect in the alleged killing of the town mayor, in his counter-affidavit submitted to the Lapu-Lapu City Prosecutor’s Office.

Chief Supt. Noli Taliño, director of the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7), could not help but smile over the claims of Niño’s camp.

“If the victim is alive, then prove it. Because on our part, we have evidence that she was killed and thrown into the sea,” he said.

In his counter-affidavit filed on Friday afternoon, Niño asked the three-man panel of prosecutors to dismiss the parricide charges against him, saying there is no concrete proof that Gisela is dead.

He also questioned the jurisdiction of the Lapu-Lapu City Prosecutor in handling the case, saying the statements of the witnesses were manipulated by the police in order to bring the jurisdiction of the parricide case to Lapu-Lapu City.

He said the statement of coaccused and now prosecution witness Randel Lupas — that Gisela was alive and squirming inside the blanket she was allegedly wrapped in — is not found in his affidavit which was submitted by the Bohol Prosecutor’s Office to support the kidnapping and serious illegal detention case filed by Gisela’s best friend Angela Leyson.

In the same way, he said, the police “intentionally crafted” the affidavit of Reolito (as spelled in Niño’s counter-affidavit) Boniel to show that it was already in the waters of Caubian Island where he allegedly shot Gisela and dumped her into the sea. Caubian is already part of Mactan.

Deep in debt

“I simply could not kill her.”

Amid money and infidelity issues, Provincial Board Member Boniel said he has no guts to end the life of his wife Gisela.

Also attached on Niño’s counter-affidavit was Cebu Daily News’ report that the board member tested negative of gunpowder residue as showed in the result of the paraffin test conducted on him.

“I already subscribed to the idea of annulment because for several occasions in the past, I personally have uncovered her infidelity. Had I the intention of killing her, I could have done it inside a hotel room with her paramour,” Niño said.

Niño said their house in Monterrazas Village in Barangay Guadalupe, Cebu City, was mortgaged to pay part of Gisela’s long-unpaid obligations which the latter purportedly incurred before they got married.

The board member said he and Gisela already agreed to annul their marriage if only to appease each other.

He also claimed that the “possibility that Gisela is still alive is high in view of the press release of correspondent Raul Gatal of Bohol Chronicle that he was able to talk to Gisela 18 hours after he heard the report of her alleged abduction.”

He attached to his counter-affidavit the June 11 report of the Bohol Chronicle that said Gisela talked to its lifestyle writer on the phone 18 hours after she was reportedly killed.

According to Niño, his wife had “all the reasons to hide or even feign death because she is neck-deep buried on debts of several millions (of pesos).”

Dubai

His lawyer Gerardo Carillo said they received reports that Gisela was seen in Dubai after the latter was reported to have been killed.

“Just wait until the trial begins because the real fireworks happen during trial,” he told reporters.

Without the body of Gisela, Carillo said there is no concrete proof that the mayor is dead.

But according to Taliño, although the police have yet to recover Gisela’s body, they have testimonies of at least two witnesses who said the mayor was killed by Niño.

The board member, however, said the statements of the witnesses Randel Lupas and Reolito Boniel were executed under duress and that both bowed down to physical and psychological pressure.

“The circumstancial (sic) pieces of evidence squeezed from unwilling witnesses under duress are not enough to supplant the need for corpus delicti in the prosecution of such as heinous crime of parricide,” his counter-affidavit read.

Taliño said he will wait for the advice of the search and retrieval team as to when they will end the search and retrieval operations for Gisela’s body, which was reportedly dumped into the seas off Caubian Island in Lapu-Lapu City after she was allegedly shot in the head by Niño last June 7.

The three-man panel of prosecutors in Lapu-Lapu is expected to rule on the parricide case against Boniel next week.

Transfer

At around 9 p.m. on Friday, Niño, escorted by armed policemen, was brought to Ubay, Bohol, on a commercial boat.

He would be brought to the Talibon District Jail, where he will be detained in compliance to the commitment order issued by a Regional Trial Court in Bohol, pending the resolution of the kidnapping and serious illegal detention complaint he is facing before the Bohol Provincial Prosecutor’s Office.

Taliño said they complied with the court’s order even as they would have wanted Niño to stay in a jail in Cebu while the parricide case against him is being resolved by the panel of prosecutors in Lapu-Lapu City.

Also charged with Niño were his eight alleged cohorts — his cousin Riolito (as spelled in the complaint), driver Lupas, Wilfredo Hoylar, Restituto Magoncia Jr., Lubo Boniel, Allan Delos Reyes Jr., Wilson Hoylar and Brian Boniel Saycon. Of the eight, four were arrested with Niño: Riolito, Lupas, Hoylar and Magoncia.

Riolito and Lupas were endorsed as state witnesses by the police.

Another witness is Gisela’s best friend Angela Gamalinda-Leyson, who, along with her 17-year-old son, was allegedly held captive inside the Bien Unido Double Barrier Reef Dive Camp before they were released last June 7.

Pressure

Niño told the panel of prosecutors that he was “extremely disturbed and alarmed” by how the Regional Intelligence Division (RID) of PRO-7 hastily filed the complaint for parricide against him.

He denied earlier reports that he confessed to Taliño that he was among those who killed his wife.

Senior Supt. Jonathan Cabal, head of the RID, had disclosed that Niño confessed to Taliño that he saw the actual killing of his wife, and that it was Riolito who shot Gisela.

But Niño said he and the other arrested respondents were pressured by the investigators to admit involvement in the crime.

“The investigative pressure, both physical and psychological, wielded on us is something that I and the other respondents could not do otherwise but yield and succumb to the investigators’ wishes to the point of just inventing stories of admission,” he said.

“Fortunately for me, the investigators did not succeed in making me sign the statements under oath,” he added.

Niño said the confessions of Riolito and Lupas are not worthy of belief as they were only coerced by the police to testify against him.

“That I can understand the zeal of the investigators in solving a crime, if indeed there is a crime done on my wife of which I am most interested to know,” he said.

He challenged the authorities to find Gisela’s body to prove that the latter is dead.

Other suspects

Meanwhile, the two other suspects — Wilfredo Hoylar and Magoncia — are also expected to be brought to the Talibon jail where they will stay until Tuesday morning only.

Judge Sylva Aguirre-Paderanga of the RTC Branch 16 in Cebu City granted the plea of lawyer Renato Galeon to temporarily detain the two suspects in Bohol so their relatives can visit them.

Paderanga set another hearing on Tuesday afternoon on the petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed by the wives of Hoylar and Magoncia, who questioned the legality of their arrest.

The judge directed the police to present witnesses and documents to prove that the operatives had personal knowledge on the circumstances of Gisela’s death.

Lawyer Ehdon Ferrera of the Philippine National Police maintained they had sufficient basis to arrest Hoylar and Magoncia, who allegedly conspired with Niño in killing Gisela.

But Galeon admitted the police had no witnesses to prove that Hoylar and Magoncia were on the pump boat where Gisela was allegedly killed.