DOJ indicts Pastor gunman

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Justice (DOJ) yesterday indicted policeman Edgar Angel, who confessed to killing of international racing champion Ferdinand “Enzo” Pastor last June 12. 

The DOJ filed a murder charge against Angel with the Quezon City regional trial court, setting aside his recantation of an earlier judicial admission of the crime. 

In an eight-page resolution dated Sept. 12 but released only yesterday, it found probable cause in the complaint filed by the Philippine National Police Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit (CIDU) and Pastor’s father, Tomas. 

The DOJ concluded after preliminary investigation that all elements of the crime of murder – including qualifying circumstances of evident premeditation and treachery – were present in this case.

Investigating Assistant State Prosecutor Susan Villanueva cited the first two sworn statements of Angel wherein he admitted to killing Pastor after being tapped by businessman Domingo “Sandy” de Guzman and Pastor’s wife Daliah for payment of P100,000.

“It appears that not only respondent (Police Officer 2) Angel decide to kill Enzo but his decision was the result of meditation, calculation and reflection, given that he had ample time from his first meeting with Sandy on the second week of November 2013 up to June 2014, to think about the said decision,” read the resolution. 

Angel had submitted to the DOJ a third statement where he recanted his confession and claimed that it was part of a “script” the police made to “suit their own agenda.”

He said he only signed the affidavit given to him by CIDU officers who supposedly threatened to implicate him in other unsolved crimes in Quezon City if he would not admit to the crime. 

The DOJ rejected Angel’s recantation, saying “recantations do not necessarily cancel an earlier declaration. Like any other testimony, it is subject to the test of credibility” that can be done in a full-blown trial, not in a preliminary investigation.

The DOJ also gave credence to the affidavit of Paolo Salazar, Pastor’s assistant and companion during the killing, who identified Angel as the gunman.

In the same resolution, however, the DOJ dismissed for lack of probable cause the separate charge of frustrated murder against Angel over the injuries sustained by Salazar since no medical records were submitted as evidence.

The DOJ resolution also did not cover yet the charges against De Guzman and Daliah, which are still undergoing PI. The two have been summoned to appear before the same investigating prosecutor on Oct. 6, which is expected to be reset after the date was declared regular holiday by the national government in observance of Eid’l Adha or Islam’s Feast of Sacrifice.

Pastor’s parents immediately welcomed the DOJ finding. 

“We knew from the start it was him (Angel) who killed Enzo,” his mother Remy told reporters in an ambush interview. 

Tomas also revealed they have received information that De Guzman and Daliah have been traveling together in the Visayas.   

DOJ Secretary Leila de Lima already said earlier that the two would not be allowed to leave the country even in the absence of a hold departure order against them.

CIDU head Chief Inspector Rodel Marcelo said they were not surprised by the DOJ resolution. “We have always been morally convinced that (Angel’s) first statement was the truth,” he said. – With Reinir Padua