Would self-defense work for Lim?

Self-defense to justify the shooting of Ephraim Nuñal, a nurse, in the March 19 road incident in Cebu City is tough to prove. [] The law requires “unlawful aggression”: Did Nuñal attack David Lim Jr., a businessman’s son, to inflict real or imminent injury? The Supreme Court talks of “actual, sudden, unexpected or imminent danger.” Not “merely intimidating or threatening.”

[] The means employed to repel the “unlawful aggression” must be “reasonable”: A gun against fists? Lim has to prove he couldn’t physically defend himself without using the gun. He must show that, pound for pound, he was no match to Nuñal or Nuñal had toughies with him.

[] Lim must not have provoked Nuñal and set off the “aggression.”

‘Didn’t tell all’

All that requires evidence. Witnesses would help tell the prosecutors and, if the case goes to court, the judge, as to what really happened.

That, and the dashboard camera video and its owner, which supports the victim’s version, for now.

Orlando Salatandre, Lim’s lawyer, knows the digital record of the shooting would be devastatingly crucial to the case. He attacked it first by

A matter of evidence, much of which rests on a dashboard camera

saying it didn’t give the complete version.

Possibly what

It could be that Lim’s witnesses would justify the shooting, such as what led to it. Nuñal would’ve his own witnesses to dispute the self-defense theory.

Or Lim could prove the video was cut or otherwise edited and thus didn’t show the part favorable to his cause. For what reason would the video owner do that? He behaved just like most internet users do.

The video would lend force to one side in the litigation, depending upon how its integrity as record of the event would hold up during trial. Compromise A compromise cannot be taken off the table despite the wish of the mayor for Nuñal to see justice. However the case will turn, Lim’s lawyer has already restored some of the doubt the public allocates for the accused. Before Lim’s surrender and his own narrative of the incident, people looked at the fugitive as the culprit who must be hunted and locked up.

But Lim still has to prove the story he told the public.