MANILA --Government lawyers on Monday asked Trece Martirez, Cavite Mayor Melandres de Sagun to file a rejoinder to explain his side by November 26 on the case against him and others in connection with the murder of Vice Mayor Alexander Lubigan last July.
Department of Justice Senior Deputy State Prosecutor Rassendell Rex Guingoyon ordered de Sagun to file his rejoinder following the filing of a reply by the victim's widow, Gemma Lubigan who claimed that de Sagun was behind the killing of her husband.
"The respondents' counter-affidavits do not deserve even a scant consideration from this Honorable office for bearing nothing more but self-serving claims, bare denials and outrageous lies," said Lubigan in her 13-page reply, claiming that de Sagun and the other respondents failed to disprove their alleged involvement in ambush on the vice mayor and his driver Romulo Guillemer.
"Despite the opportunity given, the respondents failed to offer any credible evidence in order to disprove and defeat the existence of probable cause for the crime of murder and frustrated murder against them," she said.
Lubigan also cried foul over de Sagun's theory that the killing could be a case of parricide staged to destroy de Sagun's family members' chances in next year's elections.
De Sagun's father Melancio, a former mayor, is running for mayor against the victim's widow.
"Lastly, the killing of Vice Mayor Alexander Lubigan and Mr. Romulo Guillemer cannot be deemed parricide or infanticide. The insinuation that I was responsible for my husband's death is laughable at best," she said.
On the other hand, de Sagun said he has no motive to kill Lubigan since he is not a candidate in next year’s elections.
Lubigan was gunned down while in a pickup truck driven by Guillemer with his bodyguard Romeo Edrinal when they were ambushed along the Trece Martires-Indang road. Edrinal and Guillermer survived the attack. (PNA)
