Another Cebu lawyer shot dead in broad daylight

CEBU CITY –– A female lawyer was gunned down by two men aboard a motorcycle along the national highway in Barangay Looc, Danao City, north Cebu on Thursday afternoon.

Lawyer Baby Maria Concepcion Landero-Ole was driving her car on the way to Cebu City when she was shot by one of the two men onboard a motorcycle that drove alongside her around 2:50 p.m.

The killing happened almost six months after her husband, Juanito, was also shot dead by two unidentified men in Danao City while buying a banana cue.

Juanito, according to the police, had just been released from the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City when the killing took place.

Investigators did not reveal the nature of Juanito’s case and why he was released from prison.

Authorities, however, had yet to determine if the killing was related to her husband’s death.

“We’re still investigating the incident,” said Major Ma. Theresa Macatangay, chief of the Danao City police.

Baby Maria’s ambush also came barely three weeks after another Cebu lawyer, Joey Luis Wee, was shot dead by an assailant while on his way to his law office in Cebu City on Nov. 23.

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on Dec. 9 arrested a suspect in the killing of Wee and filed charges against five other individuals who allegedly conspired to kill Wee.

Lawyer Ria Lydia Espina, president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines’ Cebu province chapter, condemned the killings of Cebu lawyers, many of which remained unsolved.

“This latest violence adds to the list of numerous unsolved cases of killings in Cebu perpetrated by assassins who remain unidentified. This attack is not only an attack against the life of an officer of the court but is also an assault to the legal profession and the rule of law,” she said in a statement.

“The forging of a memorandum of understanding between the CPPO (Cebu Provincial Police Office) and the IBP Cebu has all the more become imperative and urgent to ensure the security and protection of lawyers who are vanguards of justice,” she added.

Espina called on the public to cooperate in the investigation and share information that may be crucial for the swift resolution of the cases.

In a tally made by the INQUIRER, at least 14 lawyers in Cebu had been killed since 2004.

LZB