Asst fiscal loses fight for dear life

Cebu - Assistant Cebu City Prosecutor Patrick Osorio lost his battle for dear life yesterday afternoon almost 24 hours after he was ambushed by two motorcycle-riding men in barangay Mambaling.

Osorio, 36, was pronounced dead at 3:00 p.m. by his attending physician at the Perpetual Succour Hospital.

He was transferred to Perpetual Succour from the Miller Memorial Sanitarium Hospital along Tres de Abril St., where he was first rushed after the ambush.

The hospital management however refused to give information to the members of the media. But, sources said, Osorio was operated on at 1:00 a.m. to get the bullet logged in his body.

The doctors reportedly succeeded to get the bullet from Osorio’s body, but the prosecutor was not able to recover because of multiple organ failure.

Former Integrated Bar of the Philippines Cebu City chapter president Alex Tolentino, who visited Osorio in the hospital, said that one of the attending physicians told him that a major artery responsible for the blood circulation in the lower body extremities was severed by the bullet causing multiple organ failure.

Osorio is survived by his pregnant wife and four children.

CONDEMNATION

Cebu City Prosecutor Nicolas Sellon said that it is normal for them to be worried about their security after the incident. He, however, assured the public that this will not prevent them from doing their job.

Sellon urged his fellow prosecutors to be careful and vigilant. He promised that they will fully cooperate with the investigators by providing them whatever information necessary for the immediate resolution of the case.

Despite the incident however, Sellon said he is not entertaining the possibility of getting police escorts for him and his fellow prosecutors.

According to Sellon, it is not feasible for each prosecutor to have a police escort.

“That is far from our mind,” Sellon said.

Regional State Prosecutor Fernando Gubalane on the other hand believes that it is no longer necessary to create a task force to handle the investigation.

Gubalane said they believe in the capability of the police and the National Bureau of Investigation which are helping each other in the investigation.

Police investigators as well as agents of the NBI have already started gathering information that will help them establish the motive of the killing.

Investigators visited yesterday the prosecutors’ office to inquire the cases handled by Osorio as well as in the Regional Trial Court branch 24 where the latter was assigned as resident prosecutor.

Sellon said Osorio is not handling controversial cases since he was assigned in a family court.

RTC judge Olegario Sarmiento, on the other hand, does not believe that the killing has something to do with the cases prosecuted by Osorio in his court.

Sarmiento described Osorio as a good and soft spoken prosecutor.

“He does not badger witnesses,” Sarmiento said.

IBP Cebu City chapter president Briccio Boholst urged the police to expedite the investigation. He described the incident as an assault not only to the legal profession but to the law and order of society.

He admitted that they are also worried of their security because this is not the first time that a member of the legal profession was killed.

Boholst recalled that Lawyer Richard Sison was also killed in an ambush last year.

Osorio was fired upon by the back rider using a .45 caliber pistol while he was driving a Toyota Revo at Maria Gochan St. on his way to N. Bacalso Ave.

That was the route that Osorio reportedly normally took on his way to his residence at the Deca Homes Subdivision in Tungkil, Minglanilla.

Witnesses said that the killers had large builds and wore yellow helmets that covered their faces.

Sr. Supt. Patrocinio Comendador, Jr., chief of Cebu City Police Office, said that they are still to identify the perpetrators.

Comendador, however, said that they are now working in close coordination with elements of Mambaling Police Station as the incident happened about a hundred meters from the station in that area. They are also working with the Cebu City Prosecutors’ Office.

The CCPO chief said that the perpetrator was probably a gun-for-hire. The reason the shooting was carried out near the passenger seat, not on the side of Osorio himself, was because that was the area most open for them.

Supt. Pablo Labra II, chief of Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Branch (CIIB), said that basing on the assassination assessment, the intention of the gunman was not to kill. He said that the intention was perhaps only to scare or warn Osorio.

Labra explained that if the gunman intended to kill Osorio, he could have hit him straight in the head, but the gunman only hit him twice in the stomach.

The gunmen could have easily seen Osorio was the windows of his vehicle are not tinted.

Labra said he personally knows Osorio as the fiscal was two years younger than him and they went to the same seminary for high school.

The police officer said that he and the victim’s sister were classmates, but he was closer to the fiscal.

“Wala ko’y nahibaw-an nga duna siya’y kontra. Iyang asawa, igsoon, and parents wala sad sila’y nahibaw-an nga duna s’ya’y kontra,” Labra said.

Ban Full-Face Helmets

Meanwhile, Acting Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama said that the city government is not interested in putting up a reward to whoever may give information or capture the suspects of Osorio.

Rama said the city has been giving rewards for several times in the past yet crimes are still rampant in the city.

“We’ve been giving rewards in the past but what is happening? Let PNP do and know their job. In the meantime, I am not thinking of any reward. Let the PNP solve it,” Rama said.

Due to the crimes committee by men wearing helmets that cover the face of the user, one group is asking the city council to implement a law against wearing such helmets that would not identify the assailants.

Atty. Tolentino said that he has asked the city council for a number of times already but it has not been approved. He believes that if this would be overlooked then more crimes could happen.

Tolentino said that in Dumaguete, the wearing of helmets was taken out because it decreases the possibility of witnesses identifying assailants.

Acting Mayor Mike Rama said that the protection of motorists is important, but he will make sure that they would find a way to meet with the request.

He stated that he will be talking to manufacturers of helmets wherein they could talk on the possibility of making helmets that could be a better substitute.

Rama also said that he will be assigning a councilor to look into this.

Tolentino said that this was a “Good Move” for Mayor Rama because this will help in preventing more crimes in the future.

He also said that not only helmets should be changed but also the plate numbers. He stated that the plate numbers found at the back of the motorcycle is too small and too long to memorize.

He suggested that it would be better if plate numbers would also be placed at the side of the vehicle just like what they are implementing for Taxi’s.— with reports from Ferliza Contratista and AJ de la Torre (THE FREEMAN)