BOBBY NALZARO:

In my analysis, Bohol Provincial Board Member Niño Rey Boniel has admitted having participated in the crime when he tagged his cousin as the one who killed his wife, Bien Unido Mayor Gisela Boniel. This way, it would appear that his participation in the killing was lessened. The provincial board member used this defense so he could get away with the crime of parricide.

By tagging earlier his cousin and pumpboat operator Riolito “Etad” Boniel as the killer of his wife, Bien Unido Mayor Gisela Bendong-Boniel, Bohol Provincial Board Member Niño Rey Boniel, in a way, already admitted participation or at least having knowledge of his wife’s murder. Boniel must have thought he could get away with the crime of parricide. But Etad said Niño killed his wife.

I think Boniel pinpointed his cousin as the killer just to lessen the degree of his participation in the crime. He thought that his involvement would only be as an accomplice or accessory to the crime and not as a principal. But whatever his participation, he cannot escape criminal liability.

The liability of persons who commits a crime depends on many factors. The primary determinant is the degree of participation, whether as principal, accomplice or accessory. Principals are those who take a direct part in the execution of the act. Accomplices are those who cooperate in the execution of the offense by previous or simultaneous acts.

Accessories are those who, having knowledge of the commission of the crime and without having participated therein, either as principals or accomplices, take part subsequently to its commission in certain ways. An accessory is generally not present during the actual crime and maybe subject to lesser penalties than an accomplice or principal. He has lesser guilt than the person he or she is assisting, is subject to lesser prosecution and faces smaller criminal penalties.

Boniel is trying to assert his innocence in the killing of his wife. Granting for the sake of argument that Etad killed the mayor, what was his motive? If indeed he shot the mayor before they placed her body in a fish net, put a rock there and threw the body into the sea, then he was just following instruction from Boniel. Or maybe he was pressured or threatened to do it. Ergo, the husband had knowledge of every step in the murder of his wife.

I haven’t read yet the counter affidavit of the PB member. Maybe his defense would be complete denial, that he did not commit the crime because he was not there. And he was negative of gun powder burns.

Or maybe he would insist there was no crime at all because there is no “corpus delicti” or the mayor’s body. Lawyer Gerry Carillo, one of Boniel’s legal counsels, insist that the mayor was not murdered but slipped out of the country through the southern backdoor with his foreigner boyfriend because of financial woes.

But if Boniel would insist that Etad committed the crime, he is equally liable because he was present during the commission of the crime. If he was not present, how did he know Etad killed the mayor? If he was present, what did he do when Etad shot his wife? Was he just watching, praying, singing or laughing?

Kun sa taga Dalaguete pa kuno, “Bisag asa sandig pite, bisag asa lingi pite. Maayo pay lumigid.”