Laguna exec’s last statement tags slay brains

SAN PABLO CITY—Slain Laguna board member Reynaldo Paras had identified the mastermind in his killing shortly before he died but police are treating this piece of information as a lead, not a solid piece of evidence to pin down the persons behind Paras’ murder.

The deathbed declaration was made in the presence of Paras’ doctor, a nurse and a police investigator, according to a police source privy to it. It has been put in writing and signed by Paras before he died, said the source.

Senior Supt. Gilbert Cruz, Laguna police chief, said the supposed deathbed declaration of Paras alone could not be used as basis to charge Edwin Amante, brother of city Mayor Vicente Amante who had been identified in a police blotter entry as the source of death threats that Paras had been receiving before his assassination.

Paras himself had reported the threats to the Laguna police headquarters in the provincial capital, Sta. Cruz, days before his murder.

“It’s different from when a dying person had seen and identified the person who actually shot him,” Cruz said of Paras’ deathbed declaration of the identity of the mastermind in his killing.

Paras, a former policeman, was buried on Wednesday at a memorial park here in funeral rites joined by at least 5,000 people, including his colleagues in the Guardians Brotherhood, a fraternity of enlisted men and officers.

Paras and Geovanni Dumaraos, the board member’s bodyguard-driver, were shot by two suspects in an ambush near Paras’ home in Barangay 7C last week. Dumaraos died on the spot while Paras died hours later in a hospital.

Laguna Gov. Jeorge “ER” Ejercito, the source of the report about the deathbed declaration of Paras, said the person named by Paras shortly before he died and the person whom Paras reported to police as the source of death threats he had been receiving “belonged to the same family.”

Paras’ son, Rainier, said the family preferred not to comment on the case in the meantime.

Police last Friday filed charges against unidentified men based on descriptions provided by Eugene Bacoto, one of the two suspects in the killing who was shot when Paras and his bodyguard returned fire during the attack.

While Bacoto had described the other suspects in the killing, he failed to identify the mastermind before he died, according to Senior Supt. Cruz.

Cruz said while the deathbed declaration of Paras could not be considered a solid piece of evidence, police are building up a case and would press charges against Edwin Amante.

“We and the (Paras) family agreed to file the case soon after the funeral,” said Cruz.

Loreto Amante, the son of Mayor Vicente Amante and city administrator, came to the funeral but his father was absent.

Loreto said his uncle Edwin is not in hiding and “is willing to cooperate” in the investigation. “He’s just at home,” said Loreto.

Paras was the second board member gunned down in San Pablo City after the killing of board member Danny Yang in 2009.