6 charged for slay attempt on Cebu lawyer

CEBU CITY—The National Bureau of Investigation has filed frustrated murder charges against six people allegedly involved in the attempted slaying of a lawyer in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu province, last October.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Rennan Augustus Oliva, the NBI director for Central Visayas, said the complaints were filed in the Lapu-Lapu City Prosecutor’s Office on Feb. 5, about four months since the ambush of lawyer James Joseph Gupana.

Named respondents were retired former Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency Western Visayas Director Edwin Layese, former soldier Fausto Edgar Peralta, John Suarez, Manuelito Camacho, Randy Palparan and an unidentified person.

Layese and Peralta were arrested by the NBI in relation to the murder of Cebuano lawyer Joey Luis Wee on Nov. 23, 2020. The other respondents are still at large.

Oliva said Peralta admitted to investigators that he and the other respondents were also behind the ambush on Gupana.

Peralta told the NBI that it was Layese who identified their “target.”

Admission

“Peralta’s extrajudicial confession was included in our list of evidence because he also submitted it, admitting his participation in the shooting of Attorney Gupana,” Oliva said.

He said a land dispute between Layese’s live-in partner and Gupana was the motive behind the ambush.

The conflict started when Gupana’s neighbor started construction work to improve a firewall that was ordered demolished by the lawyer.

When the demolition started, Gupana said his neighbors, accompanied by Layese, went to the construction site and allegedly intimidated the lawyer’s workers, prompting them to stop.

Gupana was driving his Toyota Hilux on his way to his office at Barangay Centro in Mandaue City on Oct. 10, 2020, when two men on a motorcycle fired at him. —ADOR VINCENT MAYOL