Blood on motorboat matches the DNA of Gisela’s mother

A LIGHT illuminates this motorized banca that is used by Task Force Boniel to reenact the June 8 alleged killing of Bien Unido Mayor Gisela Boniel in the water off Lapu-Lapu City’s Olango Island at dawn of Wednesday, July 12, 2017.
PHOTO FROM ADOLFO IGOT

The DNA profile of the blood samples taken from the motorboat allegedly used to dump the body of Bien Unido Mayor Gisela Boniel matched the DNA profile of the mayor’s mother, an official report released yesterday said.

Senior Insp. Reslyn Abella, spokesperson of the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas, said the Crime Laboratory of Camp Crame has confirmed the DNA test result on Wednesday.

A copy of the DNA test has already been given to the PRO-7, she said.

Lawyer Inocencio dela Cerna Jr., one of the legal counsels of Bohol Provincial Board Member (PB) Niño Rey Boniel, who is now facing parricide charges for the death of his wife, however said PRO-7’s pronouncement was “bare-faced” as it did not include specific details or a more formal medical report.

“On our part, to end all speculation and conjectures, it would have been prudent that the actual results be made public,” he said in a text message.

“It is the constitutional right of the accused to question the circumstances under which this evidence was obtained and gathered,” he added.

Meanwhile, the search and retrieval team postponed yesterday’s search for the remains of Gisela due to the bad weather condition.

One of the suspects who guided the team during the reenactment on how the mayor was brought from a resort in Bien Unido to the place in the sea where her body was allegedly thrown identified a particular search area near Barangay Tingo on Olango Island, an islet off Mactan Island that is under the jurisdiction of Lapu-Lapu City.

However, divers were not able to dive due to bad weather condition and lack of rest as they started the travel to Bien Unido at past 9 p.m. on Tuesday in a convoy of three motorboats, including one owned by the Philippine Coast Guard.

They jumped off at 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday from the Bien Unido Dive Camp Resort at about the same time when the then barely conscious mayor was believed to have been carried to a motorized banca before she was brought to the sea.

During the reenactment, suspect-turned-witness Riolito “Etad” Boniel, a cousin of the provincial board member, operated a motor banca that had the same horse power engine as the boat they used when they dumped the mayor’s body.

It was already around 4:30 a.m. when they arrived at Olango Channel, the area where Etad claimed they threw the body overboard. It was then that authorities realized it was close to Barangay Tingo of Olango Island.

Olango witness?

Senior Supt. Rommel Cabagnot, the police chief of Lapu-Lapu City who led the reenactment, said it was possible that somebody might have witnessed the dumping of the mayor’s body as it was already close to daylight when it happened and there could already be people along the village’s shore at that time.

The search and retrieval diving team was preparing to search the area at dawn on Wednesday, but it was canceled because the current was too strong to do the search, Cabagnot said.

He said it would have been better if they had a sophisticated search equipment but they could no longer ask again for assistance from the Philippine Navy since the side-scan sonar that was used in the previous search, and which could show on a surface monitor the images of a wide area of a sea floor, was just borrowed from the US Navy.

Yesterday’s dive was supposed to wrap up the around 50 dives that were conducted over the last 24 days of the search and retrieval operation before they would finally recommend the termination of the operation to PRO-7, Cabagnot said.