VETERAN LAWYER KILLED INSIDE HOME

The brother of lawyer Salvador Solima relates how the two suspects barged into the house and talked to the lawyer before shooting him and his wife in the head in Singson Village, Barangay Guadalupe, Cebu City, Monday afternoon.

2 gunmen shot Solima, wife in the head; IBP condemns ‘brazen’ attack

Two men went to his home late Monday afternoon purportedly to hire his legal services.

Veteran lawyer Salvador “Buddy” Solima then ushered them to his office on the second floor of his house in Singson Village, Barangay Guadalupe, Cebu City.

Five minutes later, bursts of gunfire were heard.

Solima, 67, slumped on the floor of his office with a gunshot wound on the head and chest.

Salvador Solima

His wife, Verosse, tried to hide behind a refrigerator in the living room, but she too was shot by the assailants in the head before they fled on board a motorcycle after the incident.

Both Solima and Verosse were rushed by their house helpers to Chong Hua Hospital in Cebu City.

Solima died 6:58 p.m., more than an hour after the shooting, while Verosse remained in critical condition.

SPO3 Rommel Bancog, homicide investigator of the Cebu City Police Office, said they had yet to determine the motive of the killing as well as the identities of the perpetrators.

The killing of Solima came barely four months after Cebuano lawyer, Jonnah John Ungab, was killed by an unidentified assailant while driving his car outside the Cebu City Hall of Justice.

He was the 11th lawyer in Cebu killed since 2004. (See separate story)

Warlino Caballes, a staff of Solima’s family, said the two suspects went to the house and looked for the lawyer past 4 p.m. because they purportedly wanted to refer a case.

The two men, who appeared to be in their late 30s, were told to wait as Caballes went to ask Solima if the lawyer would allow them to get inside his office.

Solima told Caballes to let them in.

After about five minutes, they heard gunshots from the office of Solima.

“When I looked around, I saw the two men come out of attorney’s room. When they saw ma’am (Verosse), the perpetrators also fired at her,” said Caballes in an interview.

Before the shooting incident, Solima’s younger brother Roy said the two men asked his brother to represent a person detained at the Cebu City Jail in a bid to appeal the latter’s conviction for selling prohibited drugs.

“They discussed about it and my brother told them that the acceptance fee would be P120,000. After that, I went out of the house to buy soft drinks at a nearby store,” said Roy in an interview.

He then heard gunshots.

Lawyer Jose Glenn Capanas, president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines Cebu City Chapter, condemned the killing of Solima.

“We are saddened that another brother in the legal profession was shot, barely four months after a lawyer was also shot to death near the Cebu City Hall of Justice,” said Capanas.

He said the shooting of Solima was more brazen since he was attacked inside his home.

“It seems that lawlessness has already crept even unto the innermost sanctum of our homes and that certainly strikes fear in us since we no longer feel safe while inside our residences. We condemn the shooting and urge that the law enforcers would leave no stone unturned in order to get to the bottom of this and bring the culprits to justice.” he added.

Solima, a member of the IBP Cebu City Chapter, had appeared in a number of controversial cases in Cebu.

In 2007, he represented alleged robbery gang leader Joel Sumabong who was previously charged with the 2005 Land Bank robbery in Bogo City, northern Cebu, but was eventually acquitted.

He also facilitated the release and dismissal of the charges against Norwegian Sven Erik Berger and Filipino nurse Karen Castro Esdrelon who were arrested by the police for the kidnap-slay of 6-year-old Ellah Joy Pique in February 2011.

In the same year, Solima fled Cebu after he received death threats over a property dispute involving millions of pesos contested by his client and a businessman.

He eventually returned to Cebu and resumed handling cases, including the alleged mauling of a suspected shoplifter inside one of the department stores in downtown Cebu City.

In that case, he represented one of the accused. In 2016, Solima’s client in another case was found guilty of double murder for the gruesome killing and mutilation of two women in Talisay City in 2008.

Solima, a former government prosecutor, ran for mayor in Cebu City in 2010 but lost. /with reports from Rosalie O. Abatayo