Lapid case far from solved
Will the real first ‘middleman’ please stand up, with your correct middle name, if you’re not dead already?
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Daily TribuneWill the real first ‘middleman’ please stand up, with your correct middle name, if you’re not dead already?
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It came as a thunderbolt from the blue, an announcement by Southern Police District chief P/Brig. Gen. Kirby John Kraft that the police already consider the killing of broadcaster Percival "Percy Lapid" Mabasa "solved" with the filing of murder charges against self-proclaimed hitman Joel Escorial and the cohorts he tagged in the 3 October 2022 assassination.
Kraft's statement begs the question of whether or not he should be allowed to continue heading the special investigation task force created to unmask not only those who directly participated in gunning down Mabasa but, more importantly, the mastermind or masterminds behind the cold-blooded killing.
Yes, the masterminds. "Actually, we've already solved this because we have identified the suspects and we have some in our custody. And most of all, we have filed cases," Kraft said in Filipino in a radio interview Sunday, while adding their investigation would continue.
Of course, it should continue. Kraft cannot apply in the Mabasa case the Philippine National Police's simplistic definition of when a crime can be considered "solved" when suspects had been identified, arrested and charges against them filed. This is not a simple shoplifting case, general.
Escorial himself has made it very clear with his statements that the man — Jun Villamor Y Globa who "died" (from a hemorrhaging heart, the autopsy said) last 18 October inside the New Bilibid Prison was just one of at least two "middlemen" in offering to them the contract killing for Mabasa in exchange for P550,000.
For crying out loud, Villamor's identity could not even be ascertained with 100 percent accuracy as he had been identified as Crisanto Palaña Villamor in one report and then Jun Villamor Y Garcia in another, with BuCor saying the man who died at NBP under its control was the one with the middle name Globa.
Now comes another report saying the name of the dead first middleman was Cristituto and not Crisanto. We've all heard of the gang who can't shoot straight, but of one who can't properly identify people or spell? Will the real first "middleman" please stand up, with your correct middle name, if you're not dead already?
As for that dead NBP inmate identified by Escorial through a photo taken from the morgue (not from the "rogue" gallery in police reporting parlance as that means identifying someone from mug shots), what exactly is the meaning when someone dies from "heart hemorrhage?"
Did he die from natural causes or was he killed just hours after Escorial was presented by the police to the public last 18 October? No one can fault the Mabasas for asking for an independent autopsy of Villamor.
Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. himself would certainly want to get to the bottom of this crime and could not be expected to be content with the prosecution of some garden-variety killers and "middlemen."
The President, through Remulla, suspended Bureau of Corrections chief Gerald Bantag precisely to identify who was or who were the NBP personalities who wanted Mabasa dead. They could not possibly stop at the level of mere middlemen.
Everything that's wrong with Kraft's statement is that it gives the impression that, right or wrong, affording Mabasa justice would end with the prosecution of the hitman and his cohorts — driver Orly, and lookouts, and, maybe the second "middleman" in Christopher Bacoto if he is not picked to serve as state witness.
"But as far as we are concerned, we have already solved this case," Kraft insisted. Not by a long shot, it ain't, and it does not take a Sherlock Holmes to say so. "It's (not) elementary, my Dear Watson."
