2 suspects in judge’s slay identified

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet — A special task force probing Monday night’s killing of Tabuk, Kalinga Regional Trial Court Judge Milnar Limmawin has identified two of the three suspects in the gunslaying.

Senior Superintendent Eugene Martin, deputy director for operation and concurrent spokesman of the Cordillera police, said the two suspects — Peter Lingbaoan and Ulysses Signabon — were identified after their getaway vehicle, a light maroon Ford Tamaraw (not Ford Fiera as earlier reported) was found in Barangay Magsaysay in Tabuk, Kalinga, last Tuesday morning.

The vehicle, with license plate BBD 388, was abandoned in a forested area some 30 meters away from the house of a certain Martin Wandag.

The 55-year-old Limmawin, presiding judge of Tabuk RTC Branch 25, was gunned down by three men after he bought bread from a bakery in Tabuk town at about 6:30 p.m. last Monday. He died from bullet wounds in the head and neck.

Martin said Lingbaoan’s brother used to work as a driver of Mayor Camilo Lammawin, the slain judge’s younger brother.

Lingbaoan’s brother was shot dead inside the mayor’s vehicle several months ago, and the mayor was suspected by the Lingbaoans’ fellow Maducayan tribesmen in Natonin, Mountain Province, of allegedly having a hand in the incident.

Although probers still have to make any conclusive findings, Martin said vengeance appears to be the probable motive in the killing of Judge Limmawin, who belonged to the Magnao-Guilayon tribe in Tabuk town.

Tomorrow, Tabuk residents will line up along the six-kilometer highway from Barangays Dagupan to Bulanao to condemn Lammawin’s killing.

The mass action will be spearheaded by the Rotary Club of Tabuk and officials of the Kalinga State College, of which Limmawin’s wife, Venus, is the president.

Last year, another Cordilleran judge, Pinera Biden, was shot dead in front of his house in Conner, Apayao.

The Supreme Court condemned Limmawin’s gunslaying yesterday and called on the police and the National Bureau of Investigation to solve the case speedily.

Court Administrator Presbitero Velasco said Limmawin was the seventh judge killed in five years.

The six other slain judges were Celso Flores of Eastern Samar, Ariston Rubio of Ilocos Norte, Gaby Uson of Pangasinan, Pinera Biden of Apayao, Paterno Tiamson of Rizal, and Voltaire Rosales of Batangas.

Lawyer Gleoresty Guerra, of the Supreme Court’s public information office, said the tribunal is now coordinating with the authorities for possible security arrangements for judges. — With Aurea Calica