Body of evidence

Bohol Provincial Board (PB) Member Niño Rey Boniel has both time and resources at his side when he made the surprising claim that his wife, Bien Unido Mayor Gisela Bendong-Boniel, is alive and is in hiding.

Then again, he isn’t the origin of the claim — at least publicly at first — since it was his lawyer, former Cebu City councilor Gerardo Carillo, who said the mayor was very much alive and was hiding in Dubai since she was millions of pesos deep in debt.

Aside from the absence of his wife’s remains, Boniel pointed to a lifestyle writer in a Bohol publication who claimed to have talked with the mayor over the phone several hours after she was reported to have been killed by her husband.

These latest developments failed to impress the Police Regional Office that vows to pursue the charges of kidnapping and serious illegal detention and parricide against Boniel since the police have testimonies from witnesses, including the mayor’s friend Angela Leyson.

By making the claim, Boniel wants to shift the burden of proof from him and his alleged accomplices to the police, who have spent weeks combing through the waters of Caubian Island near Mactan for the mayor’s remains.

The remains supposedly sunk so far deep that it may have been carried away by the deep undercurrent by the time the police and navy teams began their search — an unfortunate development for them and most especially to the mayor’s family who don’t have the resources to pursue their case against her husband.

With Boniel’s transfer to Bohol for detention, the ball is now in their court, and his family is not without influence to make his stay behind bars and the support for his case a lot more substantial.

But Boniel still has to prove his claim against his wife as well as produce records stating that she was deep in debt that escape from him and the public office she had sworn to serve appears to be the only logical solution.

While the police will be required to substantiate their position that Boniel should be kept in Cebu to undergo trial there, the burden of proof also lies heavily on the board member to make sure that his claim sticks to his story.

In that sense, it is to the common shared interest of the police, Boniel and the mayor’s family that there is incontrovertible proof that Mayor Gisela Bendong-Boniel is in fact alive and well.

Let not the case degenerate into a tell-all “explosive” exposé of the mayor’s alleged infidelity to her husband since it would distract and divert attention away from the crux of the issue — whether she was killed or not and, if so, who was responsible for her death.

PB Member Niño Boniel owes the truth not only to himself and the mayor’s family but to his and his wife’s constituents who have elected them into office and not only expect but demand it from him.