RESORT MANAGER LINKED?

NBI, CIDG JOIN INQUIRY ON LAWYER’S MURDER

Witnesses identified a resort manager in Panglao as one of the gunmen who attacked Mia Mascariñas-Green.

Investigators are checking if a resort ownership dispute, where she represented one party, led to the attack.

Police have identified the alleged gunmen and the possible mastermind behind the assassination of an environmental lawyer in Tagbilaran City, Bohol.

Chief Supt. Noli Taliño, di- rector of the Police Regional Office-Central Visayas, has ordered a manhunt against the alleged perpetrators, two of whom are reportedly residents of Davao del Sur and Davao del Norte.

Radio dyTR reported that Lloyd Lancer Gonzaga, manager of Alona Embrace Hotel in Talawa, Panglao, and Romarico Benigian, one of the suspected gunmen, were identified by witnesses as among those who shot and killed 49-year-old lawyer Mia Manuelita Mascariñas-Green last Wednesday afternoon.

Supt. Nicomedes Olaivar Jr., Tagbilaran City police chief, said that the perpetrators are reportedly friends with the beach resort owner.

They were reportedly involved in illegal drug trade and land-grabbing incidents in the past.

The police official said that Green was caught in the conflict between her client and the owner of a famous beach resort in Panglao Island.

Olaivar added that the suspected mastermind is the son-inlaw of the victim's client and the two dragged their dispute over the ownership of the resort before the court.

He said that Green and her client, the mother-in-law of the

resort owner, were reportedly on the verge of winning the case.

“Nakabantay na sila nga helpless na ilang kaso mao nga ilang

giplano ang pagpatay ( The perpetrators already observed that the case is already helpless that prompted them to plot the killing),” said he said.

Green was gunned down by four gunmen while she was onboard her vehicle on her way home at 4:27 p.m.

The perpetrator used .45 and 9mm pistols in executing the lawyer, who was with her child at the time. The kid was spared.

Police recovered 30 empty shells at the crime scene.

Authorities raided the resort last Thursday night. They seized several firearms and illegal drugs in one of the rooms in the resort.

Olaivar believed the suspects are still in Bohol. He said that the National Bureau of Investigation and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group have joined in the investigation.