Binay: Death threats hound housing execs

Vice President Jejomar Binay on Friday condemned the killing of an official of the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB) as he revealed that other housing officials had also been receiving death threats lately.

“I strongly condemn the murder of Attorney Leonard Jacinto Soriano,” said Binay, who is also the chairman of Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC).

He called on the police to “find the perpetrators soon and bring them to justice.”

Soriano, an HLURB arbiter, was shot down Thursday afternoon in front of the agency’s office in Quezon City.

Police have yet to determine the motive of the killing. Binay urged authorities to explore all angles, including the possibility that the killing was work-related.

He said other housing officials had also received death threats and that he found this to be alarming.

“If you will recall, more than a week ago a Pag-Ibig official who filed a case against Globe Asiatique received death threats,” he said.

Pag-Ibig deputy CEO Emma Faria, one of the signatories in the complaint against GA over an alleged housing scam, received threats on her life through text messages, Binay said.

A day after Soriano’s killing, the Quezon City Police District produced an artist’s sketch of the gunman.

The head of the homicide section, Chief Inspector Elmer Monsalve, said the suspect did not cover his face when he approached the victim in his car and shot him on Malakas Street at around 4 p.m. on Thursday.

Monsalve said the sketch was based on descriptions given by a witness who was seated next to the suspect at a waiting shed near the HLURB office just before the shooting.

“We are looking into cases being handled by the victim (who works under) the agency’s legal division,” the officer said.

According to the witness, Monsalve said, the suspect was silent the whole time they were under the shed and did not show any emotion when he stood up and approached the victim’s black Toyota Altis as the vehicle was coming out of the HLURB gate.

The witness saw the suspect draw his gun and fire two shots at the window near the driver’s seat, before joining another man waiting nearby on a motorcycle to escape toward Kalayaan Avenue, he said. The motorcycle did not have a license plate.

Soriano was hit in the left armpit and was pronounced dead at the Philippine Heart Center at around 5:35 p.m.

“The shooting was apparently planned. The suspect had studied the movements and routine of the victim,” Monsalve said.