Red tape helped Naia assassins pull off attack

MANILA, Philippines—Apart from the absence of a closed circuit television camera at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia), obstructive bureaucratic red tape also provided the assailants of Labangan, Zamboanga del Sur, Mayor Ocol Talumpa elbow room to carry out the crime, according to witnesses.

Based on the sworn affidavits of six witnesses, several airport policemen in uniform were standing near the entrance of the Naia terminal when the shooting happened “but did not do anything.”

An airport source said new rules had been implemented in the terminal where certain units can conduct specific action to reduce supposed “overlapping and collusion.”

“There were policemen who were even armed with rifles but all of them hid when the shooting started and did not try to run after the gunmen,” said a witness in a sworn affidavit submitted to the Pasay City court.

A police report showed that Talumpa and his family were waiting outside Naia Terminal 3 while their escorts were retrieving their firearms from a releasing booth when the attack occurred.

Talumpa, his wife, a nephew and three others, including a year-old baby, were killed by gunmen on board a motorcycle minutes after they arrived at Naia Terminal 3.

Five other people were wounded in the attack, including the boy’s mother, Mary Ann Lirazan, his aunt Amalia Lirazan and his cousin, 3-year-old Diane Philip Uy.

Terminal 3 is the newest among the Naia terminals. The terminals are projected to handle a combined 34 million passengers this year.

Another witness said the “delay in the return of the firearms of slain mayor Talumpa’s security gave more opportunity for the gunmen to do their job.

The witness said the firearms, when returned to them, “had no magazines, which also rendered them useless.”

It also took a long time before they were able to retrieve the firearms, the witness said.

“The mayor was getting impatient, so he went out of the airport without his escorts who went to get the guns. He saw the armed uniformed airport police, so he was confident,” another witness said.

Virgilio Mendez, National Bureau of Investigation Deputy Director for Regional Operation Services, said the witnesses now under the custody of the Task Force are considered covered by the Witness Protection Program.

Mendez said that with the witnesses’ statements, the airport policemen who were at the scene would be invited to give eyewitness accounts.

The NBI had earlier eyed three possible and related motives in the Talumpa killing.

“The intense political rivalry between the mayor and former Mayor Kitty Nandang; the supposed strong advocacy of the slain mayor [against] illegal drugs that he suspected his political rival to be involved in; and the rido or feud between these two rival families,” the NBI said.

The police have filed in the Pasay Prosecutor’s Office charges of murder and frustrated murder against alleged gunman Marrox Genem Amlong and four counts of murder and five counts of frustrated murder against two John Does.

Amlong is reportedly a former security aide of Nandang.