Ex-PDEA exec held over lawyer’s slay
NBI says Edwin Layese, 51, retired Army officer and a PMA graduate, allegedly supervised the ‘hit job’ on lawyer Joey Luis Wee
CEBU CITY—Agents of the National Bureau of Investigation arrested a former regional director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) over the Nov. 23, 2020, killing of lawyer Joey Luis Wee here. Edwin Layese, 51, was nabbed in his pickup truck on Jan. 13. A confessed gunman told the NBI that Layese, a key figure in a gun-for-hire gang, supervised Wee’s killing. The mastermind has yet to be identified.
CEBU CITY—A former regional director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), allegedly a key player in a gun-for-hire gang, has been arrested in connection with the Nov. 23, 2020, killing of a lawyer here.
Edwin Layese, 51, who once headed the PDEA in Western Visayas, was caught inside a blue Toyota Hilux pickup truck near Fuente Osmeña Circle on Jan. 13, an official of the National Bureau Investigation said at a press briefing on Monday.
The same vehicle was seen in closed-circuit television cameras (CCTVs) among those used by the assailants of lawyer Joey Luis Wee.
PMA graduate
Wee, 51, was shot by assailants while he walked from his car up to the stairs of his office in Barangay Kasambagan, Cebu City, on Nov. 23 last year. He was brought to a private hospi
tal but died while he was being attended to by doctors.
Layese, a Philippine Military Academy (PMA) graduate who retired from the Philippine Army with a rank of lieutenant colonel, was also identified by the confessed gunman, Fausto Edgar Benigno Peralta, as the person who allegedly oversaw Wee’s murder.
Asked about the motive for the killing, Director Rennan Augustus Oliva of the NBI in Central Visayas said it was related to a case the lawyer handled.
“Even before Peralta’s confession, we already have evidence showing Layese’s involvement in the crime. Peralta’s confession only strengthened the result of our investigation that Layese was involved in the killing of Attorney Wee,” Oliva said.
Judge Mory Nueva of the Regional Trial Court Branch 13 in Cebu City had issued a search warrant against Layese, allowing the NBI to go after the suspect’s vehicle.
Other ‘hit job’
Aside from murder, Layese will be facing another charge after a .45-caliber pistol with an expired license and registered to a different person was recovered in the truck, Oliva said.
Peralta and Layese were among the six persons charged with murder by the NBI in relation to Wee’s slay.
Based on the NBI investigation, Oliva said Layese also had a hand in the ambush of lawyer James Gupana in Lapu-Lapu City on Oct. 10, 2020.
Gupana, 74, survived but suffered three bullet wounds in the left arm and body.
Layese will be charged separately in relation to the shooting of Gupana, Oliva said.
“Basically, he is part of a gun-for-hire business. Accordingly, he and the other perpetrators in the slay of Attorney Wee would receive an amount of six-digit figures each if they successfully carry out the murder plot,” the NBI official said.
According to Oliva, Layese belonged to the PMA’s Batch 1994 “Bantay Laya” Class and had served as security manager for upscale real estate developers in the country.
He said it took lawmen some time to arrest Layese, noting that the suspect has houses in the cities of Cebu and Mandaue, Lapu-Lapu City on Mactan Island, and in Bantayan town on Bantayan Island, also in Cebu.