Ex-colonel gets life in jail for murdering official

MANILA: A retired Philippine Army colonel and two others were meted out the maximum penalty of life imprisonment by a regional court for the murder of the vice mayor of a town in Isabela province in the Northern Luzon highlands in 2015.

The court imposed the stiff penalty on retired colonel Reynaldo Tapia and his two cohorts, identified as Army Corporal Michael Deocariza and Victor Fontilara, a civilian, after they were found guilty beyond reasonable doubt for the killing of then vice mayor Florante Raspado of the town of Jones, Isabela on June 19, 2015.

Aside from their prison terms, the court also ordered Tapia and his cohorts to pay a total of $60,000 as indemnity to the family of Raspado.

Court records showed that Tapia served as “consultant” to Jones Mayor Leticia Sebastian following his retirement from the military.

Police suspected that politics was behind the killing of Raspado, pointing out that Jones has always been considered a “hot spot” by the Commission on Elections in the last four polls due to intense rivalry among the town’s political families.

Police said they arrested Tapia and Deocariza at a checkpoint in the town of Maddela in Isabela’s neighboring province of Quirino a few hours after Raspado was gunned down on June 19, 2015.

On the other hand, Fontilara was arrested a few days later from his “safehouse” in the town of San Agustin, Isabela in a follow-up operations, police said, adding that Raspada was meeting with the municipal councilors when he was killed.

However, the court acquitted for lack of witnesses Tapia and his cohorts for the killing of an aide of Councilor Lanie Uy, who pursued the gunmen when he saw them shoot down Raspada.

In 2016, police said Jones mayor leticia Sebastian surrendered six high-powered guns registered to her late husband former mayor Jesus Sebastian who was killed by members of the communist New People’s Army (NPA).

According to the police, Raspado’s successor Councilor Ronaldo Lucas was also among those suspected behind the Raspado slaying but he himself was abducted by NPA insurgents and was found dead a few hours later in April 2016.

The NPA is the armed component of the Communist Party of the Philippines that has been waging a Maoist-style insurgency against the government for close to 50 years, considered the longest in Asia and the Pacific.