EDILBERTO Mendoza was skipping rope outside his house in Trece Martires, Cavite in the early morning of December 31, 2021, when a hitman opened fire and killed him almost instantly. A motorcycle was then caught on video speeding away from the scene of the crime.
Mendoza was a public prosecutor. He was recorded to be the 66th lawyer assassinated in the incumbency of former President Rodrigo Duterte when violence was openly espoused to address the Philippines’ narcotics problem.
Two weeks later the gunman was arrested in a buy-bust operation for illegal drugs. Marvin Linaban confessed to the killing of the prosecutor, supposedly for a bounty of 25 thousand pesos.
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Last week, as 2022 was about to end, Yvonne Plaza Chua was gunned down in front of her house in Tugbok District, Davao City.
CCTV captured two assailants on a motorcycle riding tandem. The gunman approached Chua and fired at close range after she disembarked her car to open the gate to her house. It is not easy to identify the assailants because of the helmets they were wearing.
Social media accounts identify Yvonne as a former model who dabbled in business in what is touted to be the safest city in the country – so safe, in fact, that it catapulted a mayor to the presidency.
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These are two unfortunate souls who did not live to see the break of dawn to usher in a new year. Their lives were abbreviated by motorcycle pillion riders.
Motorcycle killings is an industry by itself. This is shown by the frequency and pervasiveness of assassinations implemented in this manner.
The Chua assassination was carried out despite the well-publicized surrender of the gunman paid to kill broadcaster Percy Lapid. The apparent grind of the wheels of justice in that case did not prove to be a deterrent to those who make a living out of killing.
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According to a Rappler report, the Philippine National Police was able to record a more than seven thousand murders committed with motorcycles from 2016 to 2020. Most of these murders remain unsolved.
The difficulty lies in identifying the assassins. Their faces are camouflaged by the helmet requirement. Plate numbers are easily faked. The police have no way of telling them from the original.
The state’s failure to meaningfully investigate these murders and prosecute the killers is fodder to impunity – action without consequence, action that spits on the rule of law. Business continues.
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The government needs to squeeze every ounce of cooperation from apprehended guns for hire.
Joel Escorial who confessed to killing Percy Lapid has also admitted to working for Herman Agojo who is a convicted drug lord operating out of Batangas. Police have tagged Agojo as the alleged mastermind behind the killing of Judge Voltaire Rosales in 2004 near the Tanauan Hall of Justice. He was shot by motorcycle-riding men.
Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla has revealed that Agojo is in custody at an undisclosed military facility.
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These hitmen hold the key to the identification and prosecution of masterminds who continue to elude the tentacles of justice.
The deaths of thousands of murder victims are yet to be vindicated in our courts of law. However, the right of the State to prosecute is not limitless. Criminal prosecution must be initiated at the earliest opportunity.
Our Penal Code, for example, provides for a prescriptive period of 20 years for capital offenses like murder. The period is counted from the discovery of the crime. The offender can no longer be prosecuted after that period.
Inaction then becomes an act of grace./PN
