3 dead, 2 seriously hurt in Nueva Ecija gun attack

GAPAN CITY, Philippines – A policeman and two civilians, including a maritime student, were killed while two others, including an 86-year-old woman, were listed in critical condition when five heavily armed men fired at the vehicle owned by a son of a former mayoral candidate here yesterday morning.

Superintendent Bernard Orig, Gapan police chief, identified the fatalities as PO2 Jefferson Lim; King Jasper Juvinal, a student of the Midway Maritime Academy; and driver Rufino Vendivil, 44.

Juvinal and Vendivil were killed on the spot while Lim died while being treated at a local hospital.

Confined at the intensive care unit of the Good Samaritan Hospital were Consuelo Manse, 86, and Rodney Garcia, 16.

Emerson Pascual, whose two brothers were among those slain in the 2006 cockpit attack here, escaped unhurt in the ambush at around 10:30 a.m. yesterday along Tinio Street in Barangay San Lorenzo.

Police said Pascual and his companions had just alighted from the vehicle and were about to enter a restaurant when they were fired upon by the still unidentified men who fled on board a beige Toyota Hi-lux vehicle with license plate TT-1506.

Senior Superintendent Crizaldo Nieves, provincial police director who rushed to this city following the ambush, said probers had yet to establish the motive.

But Pascual said that prior to the incident, he came across Caloy Barlis, chairman of Barangay Sta. Cruz and a staunch ally of former three-term mayor Ernesto Natividad, father of incumbent Mayor Maricel Natividad.        

He said he had just attended the interment rites for a childhood friend and even greeted Barlis. “A minute after, it happened,” he said.

The elder Natividad, his late brother Romeo and 17 others, including one Ricardo Peralta, were tagged in the killing of Pascual’s brothers Erickson and Ebertson in their cockpit in 2006. A year later, the Pascuals’ father Rodrigo ran for mayor against the elder Natividad but lost.

The elder Natividad went into hiding in February 2012 after the Manila court issued a warrant for his arrest in connection with the cockpit raid and after all 19 suspects were placed on a hold-departure order by the Bureau of Immigration on orders of Judge Felixberto Olalia Jr. of Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 8.

The Pascual family raised a P1-million reward for the arrest of Natividad and his co-accused.

The elder Natividad though was arrested while undergoing dialysis in Metro Manila a few months before the May 2013 elections. His brother Romeo died while in hiding.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) initially ordered the filing of murder charges against the suspects in 2009 and forwarded this to the Office of the Ombudsman for review.

On Feb. 10, 2009, the Office of the Ombudsman affirmed the DOJ ruling. But when the two Natividads and Peralta filed a motion for reconsideration, then Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez reversed her ruling on April 8, 2009, excluding the three from the charge sheet.

The slain Pascual brothers’ mother Cristina appealed the Ombudsman ruling. 

On Nov. 25, 2011, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, however, found probable cause and ordered the filing of murder charges against the two Natividads and Peralta.      

In her resolution, Carpio-Morales said the DOJ ruling should have been affirmed outright because the three filed their motions for reconsideration way too late, thus rendering as final and executory the Ombudsman’s Feb. 10, 2009 ruling upholding the DOJ’s findings.

The murder cases were eventually transferred to the sala of Manila RTC Branch 10 Judge Virgilio Alameda who, on Sept. 17 last year, also found probable cause against former mayor Natividad and Peralta based on the records of the preliminary investigation and affirmed the findings of both the Office of the Ombudsman and the DOJ. – With Cecille Suerte Felipe