Security guard admits to shooting lawyers

Security guard Jonathan Sanchez admitted to shooting Lawyer Goering Paderanga Sr. and his son Gerik. (CDN PHOTO/ADOR VINCENT S. MAYOL)

CEBU CITY—A security guard has admitted to shooting dead a prominent lawyer here and wounding his son, also a lawyer, for stopping a cement mixer from getting into the construction site he was guarding.

Jonathan Sanchez was arrested past 10 a.m. on Friday, 14 hours after shooting lawyers Goering Paderanga, 62 and his son, Gerik, outside their law office on F. Ramons Street in Barangay Sta. Cruz here past 8 p.m. on Thursday.

Goering succumbed to gunshot wounds in the body at the Velez Hospital while his son was still fighting for his life.

Sanchez didn’t resist arrest when the police went to his house in Barangay Talamban in Cebu City and admitted to shooting the two lawyers.

He said he was angry at the lawyers because they blocked the entry of the cement mixer to the construction site that he was guarding.

“Padong naman gud ang mixer unya gibabagan man sa sakyanan (sa abogado). Mogahi unya ang semento. (The mixer was on the way to the construction site and the lawyer’s vehicle blocked the drive way. The cement might dry up),” he said.

The lawyers’ law firm is located along the narrow road that leads to the construction site.

Sanchez clarified no one instructed him to shoot the lawyers.

Sanchez was presented to Chief Supt. Noli Taliño, director of the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas, shortly after he was arrested.

Sanchez’s wife wept when she learned that her husband was the primary suspect in the crime.

“Maayo na lang nadakpan siya kaysa madisgrasya siya (It was better that he was arrested compared to being killed,” she said.

She admitted that the father of her five children aged 14, 12, 11, 4, and 1 used illegal drugs.