Plaza Lawton ‘barkers’ face murder raps

Two jeepney terminal "barkers" alleged to be henchmen of a Manila Barangay official has been charged with murder for the ambush-killing of a son of a Manila prosecutor in Parañaque City last April 3.

Now facing murder charges before the sala of Judge Raul de Leon of Parañaque City regional trial court branch 258 are teenagers Rolly Tonion and Jhunrey Soriano, both barkers at FX and jeepney terminals at the Plaza Lawton, in Manila.

The charges were filed in connection with the ambush of Francis Orda, 20, a son of Prosecutor Domingo Orda of the Manila Prosecutor’s Office.

The young Orda was driving his father’s Mitsubishi Lancer inside Better Living subdivision in Parañaque when the vehicle’s path was blocked by a group of armed men who shot him.

The young Orda, it was learned had just come from a Parañaque police precinct where he had just delivered his father’s police bodyguard who was assigned to the prosecutor after the lawyer himself had been ambushed while driving his car near a shopping mall in Manila last Jan. 17.

His other son Dale, 22, was seriously wounded as a result of the ambush while the prosecutor escaped unhurt.

The older Orda said he believes that a barangay official in Manila was behind the attempts on his life.

Orda said that the barangay official had an axe to grind against him for opposing her extortion activities on vendors at the Plaza Lawton and surrounding areas.

Tonion and Soriano were positively identified by neighbors of the Ordas and a village guard who witnessed the ambush. – Rainier Allan Ronda