Home 
ILOILO CITY, Philippine - A second witness has identified a former Aklan town mayor as the gunman in the slaying of Aklan broadcaster Herson Hinolan in 2004.
State Prosecutor Hazel Valdez of the Department of Justice's Task Force 211 told the Inquirer on Tuesday that Marijoe Icamina testified at the Cebu Regional Trial Court Branch 16 on Monday pointing at former Lezo town mayor Alfredo “Fred” Arcenio as the lone gunman who shot broadcaster Herson Hinolan.
Valdez said that Icamina pointed at Arcenio at the court room when asked to identify the person whom she had seen shooting Hinolan.
“She (Icamina) identified Arcenio as the gunman,” Valdez told the Inquirer in a telephone interview yesterday.
Icamina, 34, corroborated an earlier testimony of prosecution witness Niño Suñer who said he saw the former mayor, armed with a handgun, approach and shoot Hinolan at a carnival in the capital town of Kalibo on November 13, 2004.
Hinolan, former station manager of dyIN Bombo Radyo in Kalibo and host of the station's morning program “Bombohanay Bigtime,” died two days later from multiple gunshot wounds.
Arcenio, a former soldier, denied involvement in the killing and repeatedly claimed that he was in Lezo town, seven kilometers from Kalibo, at the time of the killing. He is detained at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center.
Valdez said Icamina told the court that she was also a few meters from Hinolan when he was shot. She said she saw the face of the gunman but she did not know that it was former mayor Arcenio she was looking at during the shooting.
But when she heard reports linking the former mayor to the killing, she went to Lezo town and discreetly watched the municipal government's flag-raising ceremony where she identified the mayor as the same person who shot Hinolan.
Valdez said Icamina's testimony had to be suspended twice because the witness broke into tears. According to Valdez, the witness still fears for her life after testifying.
Icamina earlier executed an affidavit claiming to have heard an aide of the mayor talking about the plan to kill the broadcaster.
One of Arcenio's lawyers, Ramiro Madarang, said they found inconsistencies in the testimony of Icamina when they compared it with the affidavit that she earlier executed.
Madarang said in a telephone interview that Icamina did not say in her affidavit that she was near the scene of the shooting.
“Now, she is saying that she was near the shooting and that she can categorically identify the gunman. That's very unusual and surprising,” Madarang said. /Inquirer
