LTO exec cleared in lawyer’s ambush

TUGUEGARAO CITY, Cagayan — The Department of Justice, through the regional prosecutor’s office, has cleared the Cagayan Valley director of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) of frustrated murder charges in connection with last year’s ambush of a Nueva Vizcaya lawyer.

However, Ferdinand Dalpig, assistant regional state prosecutor, recommended the filing of a frustrated murder case against LTO staffer Elmer Domingo whom lawyer-victim Virgil Castro has tagged as the alleged gunman.

In indicting Domingo for the July 18, 2002 ambush, Dalpig said there was "sufficient ground to engender a well-founded belief that the crime of frustrated murder has been committed."

In his four-page resolution, Dalpig, meanwhile, ruled that there was "insufficient evidence" to link LTO-Region 2 director Moises Almuete to the slay attempt.

The resolution was issued last July 17, a month before Castro survived another ambush.

Last Aug. 19, six armed men — four on board an XLT passenger-type vehicle and two in a motorcycle — fired at Castro’s Hyundai Grace van on his way to a court hearing in Villaverde, Nueva Vizcaya.

Three of the four bodyguards of Castro, former president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines’ local chapter, were killed in the ambush.

Almuete and Castro have been locked in a legal battle over the relief of former Isabela LTO district chief Ernesto Fernandez.

Fernandez, assigned in Ilocos last year as a result of the administrative complaint which Almuete had filed against him, has appealed the LTO’s decision with Castro as his counsel. — Charlie Lagasca