THE City council on Tuesday held an executive session with some members of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines Pangasinan chapter in attendance to hear the reports of the of law enforcement agencies on extra-judicial killings and threats to government officials as well as lawyers.

The closed-door session came after lawyer Baltazar Servito, former IBP chapter president of the, spoke before the council deploring extra-judicial killings.

“It is unfortunate that even lawyers and judges are victims of extra-judicial killings,” lamented Servito.

“If the extra-judicial killings can be done to lawyers and judges, the criminals can do so with much more ease to ordinary citizens,” he added.

The councilors and the IBP members listened to the reports given by Agent in-charge Jose Doloiras of the National Bureau of Investigation, Supt. Dionicio Borromeo, chief of the Dagupan Police, and representatives of the Police Provincial Office and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.

The session was held behind closed doors in view of the confidentiality, particularly the status of the investigation of the cases.

Two of the chapter’s members, lawyers Conrado ‘Pacpac’ Soriano of San Carlos City and Alejo ‘Alex’ Dojillo of San Fabian, were recent victims of extra-judicial killings.

The killings of Judge Oscar Uson of Dagupan City and lawyer Froilan Siobal of Bani remain unsolved.

Servito called on all citizens to cooperate with the NBI and police investigators so that extra-judicial killings can be stopped.

He appealed for witnesses to come forward and report to the law enforcers what they have seen.

Servito added that aside from these unsolved killings, a number of IBP members have received threats on their lives from still unidentified persons.

At the same time, Servito said that a suspicion persists that some law enforcers are suspected of being the perpetrators of extra-judicial killings of underworld characters, citing “salvaging” of known recidivists.

“This is condemnable because nobody can take the law into his or her hand and that there is a process in our judicial system where even the hardened criminals have the right to be heard and appeal their cases up to the Supreme Court,” he said.

He pointed out that some of the victims of extra-judicial killings in Pangasinan were persons with criminal records and whose cases are still being tried in courts.—LM

Share your Comments or Reactions

comments

Powered by Facebook Comments