Judge killed in Camarines Sur

NAGA CITY – A Municipal Trial Court Judge was killed a few meters away from his house,  and not inside his house as earlier reported, in Presentacion town, Camarines Sur province late Tuesday afternoon, police said.

Ricky Begino, 49, presiding judge of the Municipal Circuit Trial Court (MCTC) in San Jose and Lagonoy towns in Camarines Sur, was standing on the street leading to his house, when he was shot on his neck by Wilfredo Armea, 72, in Barangay Sta. Maria, around 5 p.m., said Bicol police information officer Senior Insp. Maria Luisa Calubaquib.

An earlier report said Armea went to Begino’s house, opened the door and shot the judge on the neck.

Begino was rushed to the town’s Rural Health Unit and later transferred to the Naga Imaging Center Cooperative Doctors Hospital (NICC) in Naga City, but was pronounced dead on arrival by attending physicians.

Senior Insp. Bernardo Peñero, chief of Presentacion police, said in a phone interview that Armea was arrested at 8:10 a.m. Wednesday, not on Tuesday night, at a friend’s house in the same village where the incident happened.

Armea did not resist arrest and surrendered to the police.

Peñero said the motive of the killing was a land dispute on an eight-hectare farmland in Barangay Bicaben in the same town, where Armea claimed ownership./lb/kga