Solve lawyers’ killings, authorities told

ANTI-CRIME WATCHDOG

Lawyers Georgia Herrera-Klepp, Irish Dwight Remedio and Briccio Joseph Boholst pay their last respects to their fallen law firm partner Amelie Ocañada-Alegre before her remains were cremated last Aug. 22. (CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA)

The Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) has called on authorities to solve the killings of lawyers in Cebu and secure justice for their families.

“VACC condemns, in the strongest terms possible, the killings of more lawyers in Cebu and add to the still unresolved heinous crimes cases in the Philippines.

Imperial Manila Judicial System must do its part and review its mission in solving these cases,” said its founding chairman Dante Jimenez in a press statement.

He said  authorities should give justice “swiftly and judiciously.”

“VACC condoles with the victims. VACC continues to pray for the victims and their loved ones that we shall all someday see the light to make things right and bright,” he said.

Jimenez, who is based in Manila,  learned of the Aug. 13 murder of lawyer Amelie Ocañada-Alegre in Mandaue City. A family friend in Cebu placed Jimenez and  Cebu City Councilor Nestor Archival in touch with the victim’s grieving mother.

READ: Female lawyer shot dead, former Mandaue City administrator survives ambush | Boholst says slain lawyer was a ‘battered wife’, threatened

Since 2004, six other lawyers in Cebu were  killed by gunmen.

Two men on a motorcycle ambushed Alegre  as she was driving a BMW sedan to drop off her lawyer partner Briccio Joseph Boholst in Mandaue City about 7 p.m.

Boholst and an accountant Antonio Pino were wounded in that attack.

Mandaue city police  released the sketches of two of the  motorcycle-riding  assailants.

Senior Supt. Mariano Natu-el Jr., Mandaue city police chief,  asked the public to help identify the gunmen.

The Mandaue police  has ruled out any link of Alegre’s killing to  six robbery suspects caught in Balamban town last week.

He said the motorcycles recovered from the suspects did not match the motorcycle used by the shooters in the Alegre ambush.

Meanwhile, the gray  BMW sedan driven by Alegre will be released to Boholst next week after police finish processing it.

The car was registered  in the name of Boholst  who said he paid for it under a repayment arrangement with Alegre to make sure the car would not be tied up in litigation over her pending annulment of marriage petitioned by her husband.

Police are also asking the family, friends and associates of Alegre to give them the passwords to her iPad, cellphone and laptop.

Alegre was cremated last August 22 and her ashes placed in its final resting place in  Cebu City.

Six lawyers in Cebu have been killed since 2004. Victims include  Noel Archival, who was ambushed with  three companions in Dalaguete town on Feb. 8, 2014.

Charges were filed against three members of the Highway Patrol Group, who all remain  at large.

In 2013, lawyer Jubian Achas and his client Dr. Rene Rafols were killed by a disgruntled litigant, Canadian expat John Pope, who followed them into a  court room in the Cebu Palace of Justice. Pope also shot and seriously injured prosecutor Maria Theresa Calibugan-Casiño, who survived the attack. Pope then turned the gun  on himself and died of a fatal self-inflicted gunshot.

In 2010, former Regional State Prosecutor Hernando Masangkay was killed inside his residence in Talisay City. A teenager is on trial for his death.

In 2009, Cebu City Assistant Prosecutor Patrick Ian Osorio was killed in an ambush in Mambaling, Cebu City.  Two men  were convicted in court as his assailants.

The motive remains unclear.

In 2008, lawyer Richard William Sison was shot dead while driving his vehicle in Cebu City. A security guard was charged and convicted in court. The mastermind has not be identified.

In Oct. 11, 2004,  lawyer Arbet Sta. Ana-Yongco, who prosecuted cult leader Ruben Ecleo,  was shot dead  in her office-home in barangay Zapatera, Cebu City. The gunman died in jail.