Vigan judge shot dead, 2nd in northern Luzon this year

(Updated 12:21 p.m.) Another judge was shot on Monday by the usual suspect - an unidentified motorcycle rider - in a predawn ambush in Ilocos Sur Monday, a regional police official said. He was the second judge murdered in northern Luzon this year. A culture of impunity has made the Philippines one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a judge, journalist, or activist. Ilocos region police head Chief Superintendent Orlando Mabutas said Vigan Regional Trial Court Branch 20 Judge Reynaldo Lacasandile was waylaid as he was about to go to Vigan at 4:45 a.m. "Si Judge patungong Vigan City, ang sasakyan niya naka-park along the highway. Umabot sa sasakyan niya, pinagbabaril siya ng isang lalaki na allegedly naka-motor. Dinala siya sa hospital pero nag-expire," Mabutas said in an interview on dzBB radio. (The judge was on his way to work in Vigan City. His vehicle was parked along the highway leading from his house in Tagudin town to Vigan City. Motorcycle-riding men pulled up and one of the passengers shot him. He was rushed to a hospital but died while being treated.) For his part, Ilocos Sur provincial police head Senior Superintendent Eduardo Dopale said Lacasandile left his motorcycle at an auto repair shop and was waiting for a vehicle bound for Vigan when he was gunned down. Recovered from the crime scene was a .45-caliber empty shell. Senior Superintendent Christopher Laxa, deputy for operations of the PNP's Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, said that Lacasandile was the 21st judge to be killed since 1999. Laxa added that of the 21 killings, only eight cases have been filed in court. The cases remain pending as of October 2010, he added. Special task force Dopale added that the local police have created a special investigating team to look into the judge's killing. "We already created a special investigation task group led by our CIDG (Criminal Investigation and Detection Group) and our investigators here in the provincial police office and members of the Tagudin police station." Mabutas said they are determining whether the killing was related to the cases being handled by the judge. "We are not discounting other angles but we are initially checking the work-related angle because of the nature of his work," he said in Filipino. He said he has formed a task force to investigate the incident. He also sent out a flash bulletin about the suspect. Dopale added that Lacasandile only sat as an RTC judge early this year. Prior to that, he served as a provincial prosecutor in Ilocos Sur's second district. Culture of impunity Only last May, unidentified gunmen shot dead a judge while he was heading for his boardinghouse in Cagayan province. Judge Andres Cipriano of Aparri town succumbed to at least two gunshot wounds in the body and died instantly. (See: Report: Judge shot dead in Cagayan province) International groups have condemned the culture of impunity in the Philippines, where journalists, activists, and human rights advocates had become targets. However, rarely has public attention been focused on the violence against judges. In 2008, Philippine investigative news organization Newsbreak received the European Commission’s Lorenzo Natali Prize for its piece that looked into the murders of 44 judges in recent years. The story indicated that "the judiciary does not have enough money to assign bodyguards to the 3,000 judges" and "only the chief justice enjoys a security detail." The article quoted then Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban as saying: "How can judges give justice to the people when they themselves are victims of injustice?" — with Sophia Dedace/RSJ/HS, GMANews.TV