The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) filed on Friday several criminal charges against 11 persons in connection with the death on January 1 this year of flight attendant Christine Dacera.
Filed before the Department of Justice (DOJ), the complaints include the following: administering illegal drugs, attempt to deliver or to give away illegal drugs, perjury, obstruction of justice, reckless imprudence resulting in homicide, and falsification of an official document by a public officer.
Named respondents in the complaints are Mark Anthony Rosales, Rommel Galido, John Pascual dela Serna III, Darwin Joseph Macalla, Gregorio Angelo Rafael de Guzman, Jezreel Rapinan, Alain Chen, Reymar Englis, lawyer Neptali Maroto, Louie de Lima, and Southern Police District medico-legal officer Michael Nick Sarmiento.
The NBI said it was Sarmiento who ordered the embalming of Dacera’s remains even without the consent of her family.
Some of Dacera’s friends were also among those charged by the police with rape with homicide before the Makati City Prosecutor’s Office.
Dacera, 23, died after a New Year’s Eve celebration with her friends. Her family believes she was drugged and sexually abused.
Dacera’s friends, however, have insisted they did not harm her, instead claiming that they took care of her when she was heavily drunk and until her final moments.
A medico legal report of the Philippine National Police Crime Laboratory ruled out homicide as the cause of death.
Instead, the report said Dacera died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm that was triggered by an increase in blood pressure.