Cebu police officers linked to lawyer’s slay

NBI AGENTS present a search warrant to SPO4 Edwin Galas (in red shirt) during a raid on the Highway Patrol Group’s (HPG) compound in Cebu City that led to information linking Galas and other HPG officers to the killing of Archival. LITO TECSON/CEBU DAILY NEWS

CEBU CITY—The head of the police’s Highway Patrol Group (HPG) in Central Visayas and three other police officers were tagged suspects in the ambush-killing of lawyer Noel Archival and his two companions on Feb. 18.

Two of the vehicles used in the attack were traced to the compound of the HPG in Barangay Sudlon, Cebu City, where impounded vehicles were being kept.

Lawyer Max Salvador,  director of the National Bureau of Investigation in Central Visayas, declined to divulge details on the role of HPG officials in the killing pending the filing of charges against them.

He identified them as Supt. Romualdo Iglesia, HPG regional chief, Senior Insp. Eduardo Mara, Senior Insp. Joselito Lerion and SPO4 Edwin Galan.

Iglesia, Mara and Lerion were among the HPG men sued by Archival in the Office of the Deputy Ombudsman for the Military and Other Law Enforcement Offices last year for dishonesty, grave misconduct and falsification of public documents.

On Thursday, a team from the NBI raided the compound of the HPG on the strength of the search warrant issued by Executive Judge Soliver Peras of the Regional Trial Court in Cebu City.

The NBI team found a red Vios with license plate GSC 675, which was one of two vehicles used in the ambush of Archival.

The other vehicle, a gray Mistubishi Strada, was removed from the compound before the raid, said NBI supervising agent Rennan Augustus Oliva.

The security guard in the compound had revealed that he was asked by persons inside the Strada not to record in his logbook the vehicle’s exit.

Previous entries in the logbook, however, showed that the Vios and Strada were taken out of the compound on the morning of Feb. 18 and were returned in the afternoon.

Archival, his aides Candido Minoza and Paolo Cortes, and driver Alejandro Jaime were returning to Cebu aboard a Ford Escape aound 1:45 p.m. on Feb. 18 when they were ambushed on the highway in Dalaguete town, about

80 kilometers south of this city. Only Cortes survived the attack.

He later told police that a red car ahead of Archival’s vehicle blocked their path.

He said a gray Strada then came from behind, drove alongside them and fired several shots at their vehicle.

Around three minutes before the ambush, CCTV footage from the Dalaguete municipal hall showed that Archival’s vehicle was in between the red car and the Strada.

The NBI searched the HPG compound after the license plates of the red car and Strada turned out to be those of vehicles being kept at the compound. The red car turned out to be the Vios.

During the raid, Galan expressed surprise at being named in the search warrant.

“My question is: Why am I included?” said Galan, 55, who is due to retire this year.

NBI agents found inside the Vios documents related to a case that Archival’s law firm was handling for clients Catherine Go and Chris Reinz, and was filed by the HPG officers being tagged suspects in Archival’s killing.

Go and Reinz had been accused by the HPG officers of car theft, violating the antifencing law and illegal transfer of a vehicle license plate in a case that was tagged extortion.

Archival’s partner in his law firm, John Ypanto, helped in the defense of Go and Reinz.

On Oct. 10 last year, Go was flagged down by HPG agents while driving a Nissan X-Trail in Barangay Mabolo in this city.

The HPG agents accused Go of driving a stolen car. Reinz, whose name appeared as owner of the sport utility vehicle that Go was driving, was included in the case.

Go, in turn, accused SPO1 Aldrin Gulingan of the HPG of demanding P200,000 in exchange for the release of her car.

Senior Inspector Lerion denied the extortion charge on behalf of Gulingan.

Archival, however, continued to file the case against Gulingan.

In December last year, Archival filed separate administrative and criminal cases against the HPG officers.