ILOILO City – Six of the 10 persons who executed affidavits which the Iloilo Police Provincial Office’s special investigation team used to file a murder complaint against eight individuals for the death of businesswoman Claire Diergos were charged with perjury.
The charges were filed yesterday at the Iloilo Provincial Prosecutor’s Office when six of the respondents in the Diergos murder case submitted their counter-affidavits.
“Ang ila affidavits nga gin sumpaan lunsay kabutigan kag may inconsistencies,” Atty. Dwight Trasadas told Panay News, referring to the witnesses being charged.
Trasadas is the legal counsel of Diergos murder case respondents Peter Paul Lopez (former mayor of San Dionisio, Iloilo), wife Saliha, sons Carlos Paul, Felix Paul Lopez and Christian Paul, and former Lopez aide Raffy Sorioso.
“Ang akon clients nag-decision nga mag-file sang countercharges,” said Trasadas.
He did not name the witnesses but said one was a pedicab driver, a police officer and four members of the Diergos family.
The Lopezes and Sorioso denied having anything to do with the death of Diergos, a single mother. They pointed out gaping holes in the affidavits of six witnesses.
Trasadas cited an example – the claim of one witness that Sorioso drove Diergo’s sport utility vehicle where the victim was supposedly stuffed after she was killed.
According to Trasadas, Sorioso does not know how to drive a four-wheel motor vehicle. Proof: they got a certification from the Land Transportation Office that the agency had not issued a driver’s license to Sorioso.
Filing perjury charges against witnesses is the latest move of the respondents in battling the murder case. Early this week, Trasadas also confirmed that his clients asked the prosecutor handling the preliminary investigation to inhibit.
A motion to inhibit was filed last week and this was addressed to Prosecutor I (Associate Provincial Prosecutor) Joviel Edama of the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office.
“We have nothing against the investigating prosecutor,” clarified Trasadas. “It is just that we discovered that when he was a practicing lawyer, he represented a relative who accused Peter Paul Lopez for grave coercion when (Lopez) was still a mayor San Dionisio, Iloilo” sometime in 2018.
The prosecutor must inhibit from the case “para indi magduda ang pihak nga party or to avoid malice,” Trasadas told Panay News.
Edama has yet to make known his response to the motion, said Trasadas.
The murder complaint against his clients was filed on Jan. 5, 2022.
Aside from the Lopezes and Sorioso, the other respondents were Gardo Ibrahim, a former aide of Lopez, and Rodilyn Sumbong, the newly-hired house help of Diergos.
There were two other respondents but the police have not named them.
Diergos was found dead inside he sport utility vehicle on Oct. 26, 2021 in Barangay Inangayan, Santa Barbara, Iloilo.
The special investigation team of the Iloilo Police Provincial Office, however, determined that she was actually killed in her house at Deca Homes subdivision in the adjacent town of Pavia in the wee hours of Oct. 25, 2021.
It took the team more than two months to file the complaint, citing the lack of credible witnesses.
An autopsy showed Diergos had multiple stab wounds: two on the neck, five on the left arms and two on the right arm. Her neck was slashed.
On Oct. 29, 2021 Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO) conducted a luminol acid test in Diergo’s house at Deca Homes Subdivision, Barangay Balabag, Pavia. Blood traces were spotted on the floor, wall, bed, blanket of Diergo’s three-year-old daughter, table, wall of the comfort room, Diergos’ dressing room, and the cover of the washing machine.
A closed-circuit television footage showed Diergos’ Montero Sport leaving Deca Homes at 4:20 a.m. on Oct. 25.
One of the first persons the police invited for questioning was Diergos’ newly-hired house help Sumbong of New Lucena, Iloilo.
She last saw Diergos alive late night of Oct. 24 (a Sunday), she told the police, and hadn’t seen her since waking up Monday morning after. She denied having anything to do with the killing.
Sumbong was hired just that Sunday afternoon. She said Diergos fetched her at the transport terminal in Barangay Tagbak, Jaro, Iloilo City and they had dinner in Oton town before going home to Deca Homes around 8 p.m.
If Sumbong were to be believed, she went to sleep soundly that Sunday night after Diergos told her to just leave the gate unlocked./PN
