QCPD obtains CCTV footage on killing of BIR official

The bullet-riddled car of BIR Makati Office director Jonas Amora in Quezon City (PHOTO BY JODEE AGONCILLO/ INQUIRER)

MANILA — The Quezon City Police District has obtained footage from three CCTV cameras capturing the moments when Bureau of Internal Revenue official Jonas Amora was tailed by motorcycle-riding hitmen and shot dead in an ambush in on Monday.

Senior Superintendent Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar, Quezon City Police District director, Amora, 55, director of the Bureau of Internal Revenue-Makati City-Revenue Region 8, was shot dead while his driver Angelito Pineda was still undergoing operation as of Monday evening, after two unidentified gunmen riddled their white Toyota Innova vehicle with bullets along the C5 Katipunan Avenue, near the corner of Topside Road and Libis St, in Barangay Escopa, around 5 a.m. on Monday.

Police Officer 2 Louie Serbito, case investigator from the QCPD’s station investigation and detection unit, said Amora suffered gunshot wounds in the face while Pineda, 50, was undergoing operation at the Quirino Memorial Medical Center and could not talk as of this posting.

The QCPD has formed a special investigation task group to speed up the case, said Senior Inspector Elmer Monsalve, head of the QCPD’s Homicide section. Possible motives could be job-related or a personal grudge, Monsalve said.

Senior Superintendent Guillermo Eleazar, QCPD director, said they have obtained footage from three CCTV cameras in Marikina and Quezon City showing the two gunmen on board a motorcycle trailing the Toyota Innova at the Marikina Industrial Valley before they overtook the victim’s car.

Amora, who came from his home at Filinvest East Antipolo, was on his way to his office in Makati City, Eleazar said.

Witness Judith Madroña, a tricycle driver, told probers she was plying her route when she saw a bloodied Pineda alighting from the Innova, and then suddenly kneeling down looking pained. Pineda, she said, later boarded a taxi cab, which brought him to the hospital.

Madronio added she also noticed a bloodied Amora on the Innova’s front passenger seat, prompting her to alert the Quezon City Police Station 8.

Responding policemen recovered from Amora’s vehicle cash amounting to P366,755 placed in various letter envelopes, and from the crime scene, 10 fired cartridge cases of a 9mm, a deformed and fired bullet, bullet jacket and lead core.

Eleazar, basing on the closed circuit television footage at Barangay Escopa, said the killing was premeditated as the gunmen waited at a corner where the victim’s vehicle was expected to stop. The gunmen, Eleazar added, eventually overtook Pineda’s vehicle before they fired at the vehicle.

At Amora’s BIR office in Makati City, employees were still in shock over his murder. Some of the employees and members of Amora’s family, upon hearing the news rushed to the Quiogue Funeral in the morning.

Lady guard Raquel Bicaldo, who was assigned at the Revenue Region 8 BIR at the same time Amora was assigned as director in June 2014, said Amora was a humble, well-mannered and amiable person. “Wala kaming masabi sa kabutihan niya (Words are not enough to describe his goodness),” she said. She remembered him patting her on the back last Friday, and asking if she was okay or if she had eaten. “We will miss him,” she told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

That was the last time she and the other BIR employees saw Amora.

Zaldy Alaska, officer in charge of the BIR’s region 8 security group, shared the same sentiment about the slain director’s kindness.

Amora was previously assigned as assistant director of BIR 77 in Quezon City before his current post, Alaska said.

This was the second time in two weeks that an official from the Department of Finance was shot dead by unidentified gunmen.

Last Nov. 17, Arturo Lachica, Bureau of Customs deputy commissioner for the Internal Administration Group,  was also killed in an ambush in España, Manila.

Lachica, 58, was declared dead in the hospital after sustaining multiple gunshot wounds in the chest.

Lachica’s bodyguard Romulo Delima was injured but he survived.

Manila Police District’s Senior Inspector  Raymundo Regala of the followup unit who has been working on Lachica’s murder, went to the QCPD on Monday morning to check if there were similarities in Amora and Lachica’s killings.

“So far, we cannot make a conclusion yet. The perpetrators of Lachica’s murder used a .45 (gun); while Amora’s killers used a 9mm. We are still studying it and looking for patterns,”  he said.

Monsalve said they have been looking into personal and job-related motives. They will also gather background information on the money found inside Amora’s vehicle.

Amora’s remains lie at the Arlington Funeral Homes in Araneta Avenue, Quezon City.  SFM