Lawyer, security guard killed

La Trinidad, Benguet – After a brief respite from high profile killings in Abra, touted as Cordillera’s Killing Fields, Sunday afternoon’s slaying of a septuagenarian lawyer and a security guard several hours after right inside their own turfs may hint that the momentary peace in the province is still precarious.

Veteran criminal defense lawyer Demetrio Villamor Pre, 75, was shot to death by two still unnamed gunmen inside his house cum law office at Pratt Street, Barangay zone 4, Bangued town at around 3:30 Sunday afternoon.

Cordillera police spokesman Superintendent Arni Dean Emock said Bangued policemen who are now into the thick of investigating the daring midday assassination initially found out that Pre was attending to a client named Bernardo Bañes, 71, when the two gunmen barged inside the law office and shot the lawyer twice in the head. “They were conversing with his client when the incident occurred,” Emock said.

The lawyer suffered two gunshot wounds from a .45 caliber firearm on his forehead and left eye.

The gunmen who are now being hunted, police said, fled aboard a motorcycle.  

Pre was rushed to the Seares Memorial Clinic but was pronounced dead-on-arrival by attending physicians. The slain lawyer was brought to the Tamo Funeral Parlor, also in Bangued town for autopsy.

Emock said investigators are looking at the possibility that the slaying is related to a land dispute where the 75-year old lawyer is involved. But reliable sources said that police should look into other angles like possible vendetta against him because he was one of the lawyers of former governor Vicente Valera who was tagged as brains in the December 2006 killing of then Abra Rep. Luis Bersamin and other alleged political killings in the province.

Abra police director Senior Superintendent Alexander Pumecha however vowed they are on their toes for the early solution of the killing. Again, several hours after Pre’s slaying, and just a few steps from the crime scene, 32-year old security guard Efren Bersalona was slain inside the town hall in Bangued.