THE Supreme Court has upheld the finding of probable cause and reinstated the arrest warrant and hold departure order issued against Dalia Guerrero Pastor, a co-conspirator in the 2014 killing of her husband, race car driver Ferdinand “Enzo” Pastor.
In a decision promulgated last February 26 but only made public yesterday, the SC’s Second Division, through Associate Justice Amy Lazaro Javier, reversed the ruling of the Court of Appeals dismissing the criminal case for parricide against Guerrero Pastor.
Pastor was driving a truck to Clark, Pampanga in the company of his mechanic, Paolo Salazar, on June 12, 2014 when a man approached the driver’s side of the vehicle after it came to a stop at the intersection of Visayas and Congressional Avenues in Quezon City and fired several shots, killing him.
Police later charged PO2 Edgar Angel as the gunman and businessman Domingo de Guzman II and Guerrero-Pastor as masterminds in the killing.
Angel and De Guzman were arrested while Guerrero-Pastor remained at large.
Angel claimed De Guzman paid him P100,000 to eliminate Dalia’s husband.
In the same ruling, the SC dismissed for lack of merit De Guzman’s petition for review challenging the criminal cases against him as the magistrates sustained the finding of probable cause and the denial of his bail application.
Concurring with the ruling were Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen and Associate Justices Mario Lopez, Jhosep Lopez and Antonio Kho Jr.
Police investigators pursued a love triangle angle in the murder case, with De Guzman, Dalia’s alleged lover, suspected as the mastermind.
Guerrero-Pastor later went to the CA after Branch 91 of the Quezon City Regional Trial issued a warrant for her arrest to question the criminal case against her.
The appellate court ruled in her favor and junked the parricide case for lack of evidence, saying Angel failed to identify her as the mastermind of the plot to kill her husband.
The appellate court also held that even if she knew of the agreement between Angel and De Guzman, this was not enough to prove that she conspired with them.
But the SC stressed that a finding of probable cause needs only evidence showing that, more likely than not, a crime has been committed by the suspects and does not require evidence of guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
“To reiterate, a finding of probable cause needs only to rest on evidence showing that more likely than not a crime has been committed and was committed by the suspects. It is not a pronouncement of guilt, rather it merely binds the suspect to stand trial. Verily, the evidence required to establish probable cause does not need to amount to guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” the SC said.
“The Court holds that contrary to the pronouncement of the appellate court, there is ample evidence on record clearly identifying Dalia as a co-conspirator and detailing her participation therein,” it added.
The SC said that among the evidence that would link her to her husband’s killing was the testimony of the couple’s household, who claimed to have witnessed her affair with De Guzman.
Another witness, Alvin Nidua, a self-proclaimed gun-for-hire, claimed he met with Guerrero Pastor and De Guzman who both offered him P200,000 to kill her husband, but Nidua declined because the amount was too low.
Salazar, the mechanic, said that while he and Pastor were on their way to Clark, Pastor’s wife called multiple times to track their location.
“Dalia’s acts as stated above, show that she not only served as a strong motivation to carry out the plan, but she had an active hand in planning the ambush of Enzo. Too, her abrupt absence right after a warrant of arrest was issued on her lends credence to the prosecution’s case that she is probably guilty of the offense charged,” the SC added.
