GAPAN
CITY, Nueva Ecija – An incumbent barangay chairman closely allied with the father of
incumbent Mayor Maricel Natividad was charged with an information for multiple
murder and multiple frustrated murder
before the city prosecutor's office and detained at the police
headquarters here for the cold-blooded massacre of a rookie policeman and three other civilians
following an aborted ambush attempt on the son of a former mayoral candidate in
a broad daylight ambush Tuesday.
Police Superintendent Bernard Orig,
Gapan police chief, said Montano Barlis, barangay chairman of Sta. Cruz, is now
detained at the police station here following his arrest Tuesday night by a
police team accompanied by Emerson Pascual who was the target of the ambush
attempt.
Barlis is a staunch ally of
Natividad's father, former three-term mayor Ernesto Natividad who is also
facing charges for the raid in a cockpit arena owned by the Pascuals in 2006.
Two of Pascual's brothers - Erickson and Ebertson - were killed in the attack.
Barlis said the five other suspects
have yet to be identified although they will soon come out with cartographic
sketches based on the description of witnesses.
Three persons were killed following
the ambush attempt which triggered a 10-minute firefight in a restaurant along
Tinio St., Barangay San Lorenzo.
Killed were Police Officer 2 Jefferson
Lim, King Jasper Juvinal, student of the Midway Maritime Academy, of Barangay Mangino
and driver Rufino Vendivil, 44, of Barangay Mahipon. Juvinal and Vendivil both
died on-the-spot while Lim died while undergoing treatment at a local hospital.
On Tuesday afternoon, a fourth victim
Consuelo Manse, 86, died at the
intensive care unit of the Good Samaritan Hospital. Rodney Garcia,16 is listed
in stable condition but is still confined at the intensive care unit of the
same hospital.
Pascual, whose two brothers were among
those massacred in the 2006 cockpit attack here, escaped unhurt.
Region 3 police director Chief
Superintendent Edgar Ladao and provincial police director Senior Superintendent
Crizaldo Nieves both visited Pascual at his residence in Barangay Pambuan here
at noon.
Police said Pascual’s group alighted
from their vehicle and was about to enter a restaurant when the suspects, all
armed with automatic gunfire, shot them.
They fled aboard a beige Toyota Hi-lux vehicle with license plate
TT-1506.
Some 500 slugs of various types of
guns were left in the crime scene from 9 mm and .45 caliber revolvers, M-14
Armalite rifle, AK-47 and M-16 rifles.
Orig said they have yet to establish
the motive for the attack but said they are looking into politics and old
grudge.
Pascual said prior to the incident, he
came across Barlis. He said he just attended the interment rites for a
childhood friend and even greeted Barlis. “A minute after, it happened,” he
said.
The
elder Natividad, his late brother Romeo and 17 others were tagged for the
killings of the Pascual brothers. A year later, the Pascuals’ patriarch Rodrigo
ran for mayor against Ernesto but lost.
The elder Natividad went into hiding
in February 2012 after a warrant for his arrest was issued by a Manila
court in connection with the raid and
after all 19 suspects were placed on a hold-departure order by the Bureau of
Immigration and Deportation (BID) on orders of Manila Regional Trial Court
Branch 8 Judge Felixberto Olalia Jr.
The Pascual family has raised a
P1-million reward for the arrest of Natividad and his co-accused. The elder
Natividad was arrested while undergoing dialysis treatment in Metro Manila a
few months before the May 2013 elections. Romeo died while in hiding.
The Department of Justice initially
ordered the filing of murder charges against the suspects in 2009 and forwarded
these to the Office of the Ombudsman for review.
On February 10, 2009, the Office of
the Ombudsman affirmed the DOJ ruling. But when the two Natividads and Ricardo
Peralta - another suspect - filed a motion for reconsideration, then Ombudsman
Merceditas Gutierrez reversed her ruling on April 8,2009, excluding the three
from the charge sheet.
Mrs. Cristina Pascual, mother of the
slain brothers, appealed the Ombudsman ruling.
On November 25, 2011, Ombudsman
Conchita Carpio Morales found probable cause and ordered the filing of murder
charges against the two Natividads and Peralta, in effect reversing a 2009
ruling of her predecessor Gutierrez and granting the motion for reconsideration of Mrs. Pascual.
The latest Ombudsman ruling said the
DOJ ruling should have been affirmed outright because the three filed their
motions for reconsideration way too late, thus rendering as final and executory
the Ombudsman’s February 10 ruling affirming the DOJ’s findings.
The murder cases were eventually
transferred to the sala of Manila RTC Branch 10 Judge Virgilio Alameda who last
September 17 also found probable cause against Natividad and Peralta based on
the records of the preliminary investigation and affirmed the findings of both
the Office of the Ombudsman and the DOJ.
(Manny Galvez)
