With no identified mastermind, police ‘solve’ Ka Percy murder

The mastermind must be very happy.

Metro Manila’s Southern Police District has declared “solved” the assassination of fiery broadcaster Percival Mabasa, popularly known as Ka Percy Lapid. That a gunman has surrendered and confessed seemed enough to close the investigation.

Gaps weaken the case. The getaway motorcycle driver and two lookouts, all supposedly alternate shooters, are still at large. One middleman, a drug indictee long in custody but allegedly the paymaster, refuses to cooperate with probers. Another middleman, a murder convict who allegedly organized the hit squad, died under suspicious prison circumstances four hours after police televised the gunman.

Having filed a criminal complaint, police will pass on the work to prosecutors. Prosecutors’ role is not crime solving but presenting evidence for the judge’s appreciation.

Gunman Joel Escorial will be transferred to the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology. There he will be forgotten.

Only when the judge issues an arrest warrant will police try to track down getaway driver alias Orly or Orlando. Also lookout-brothers Edmon and Israel Dimaculangan. Police will do that in their spare time.

Only by chance may paymaster Christopher Bacoto be conscience-stricken to tell what he knows. Meanwhile, hit squad organizer Crisanto Villamor y Globa, with all internal organs embalmed, will tell no tales.

Those let the mastermind off the hook.

That there’s a mastermind is obvious. Villamor could not have formed the hit squad on his own. Someone with an axe to grind against Ka Percy would have taken out a contract on him.

Murder-for-hire is one of prison syndicates’ seven rackets. The six others are kidnap for ransom, bank robbery, narco-trade, illegal gambling, extortion for protection and money laundering. Crooked Bureau of Corrections officials facilitate the rackets by providing them mobile phones.

Bacoto could not have paid Escorial, Orly and the Dimaculangans P550,000 on his own. A low-level narco-trafficker, he must be a mere conduit who deposited the money in Escorial’s bank account. Someone rich provided the cash.

Escorial described Villamor and Bacoto as “middlemen,” intermediaries between two parties – the mastermind and the hit men.

The mastermind must be so powerful to manipulate the investigation.

BuCor officials blabbered nonsense. Villamor supposedly died of “bangungot” (acute hemorrhagic pancreatitis) during afternoon nap. Given that National Bilibid dorms are overcrowded, “ka-kosa” (cellmates) would have roused and rushed him to the prison clinic. A death certificate was issued at 2 p.m. Oct. 18, stating the cause, when BuCor would say days later that Villamor had yet to be autopsied.

Forensic pathologist Dr. Raquel Fortun cited irregularities. Autopsy should have been done before embalming. There was no toxicology report; embalming chemicals can muddle traces of poisoning.

The deceased’s name is not even Crisanto “Jun” Globa Villamor. It’s Cristito “Tidoy” Villamor Palaña. Broadcaster Ted Failon turned this up in an interview with the father, Restituto Palaña, who was preparing to bring home the remains to Javier, Leyte. Another Bilibid inmate is Jose Villamor, Cristito’s maternal cousin. BuCor meandered for a week before securing him from possible silencing.

It turns out that Cristito had sensed danger. Hours before death he alerted sister “Marisa” that fellow-inmates were out to get him: the “commanders” of three Bilibid gangs Sputnik, Happy Go Lucky and Batang City Jail. Marisa disclosed this in Senator Raffy Tulfo’s radio show.

For a while there the mastermind must have worried. Public outcry ensued after Ka Percy was gunned down at 8:30 p.m. Oct. 3 while entering his gated residential village in Las Piñas City. Media raged since Ka Percy was a courageous exposer of corruption in high places. Foreign news correspondents denounced the spate of killings of Filipino journalists with impunity and were troubled that Ka Percy had been done in right in the national capital.

The mastermind must feel relieved now. The case does not identify him, a breach of practice.

The Supreme Court’s Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure, Rule 110 – Prosecution of Offenses, Section 6, Sufficiency of complaint or information, states:

“… When an offense is committed by more than one person, all of them shall be included in the complaint or information.”

Parallel police procedures fall short. The National Police Commission deems a case solved when an offender is identified, arrested and booked with sufficient evidence.

With spotty investigations, more murders will be masterminded. All seekers of justice are imperiled.

Thugs are bashing and threatening online Ka Percy’s wife, offspring and younger brother Roy, former National Press Club president. The mastermind employs trolls. Videos show them in prison garb, faces blurred, menacing Ka Percy’s kin to shut up.

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