Suspect in Platon slay nabbed

BATANGAS CITY — A suspect in the assassination of Tanauan’s mayor Caesar Platon was positively identified by a lone witness yesterday, after the suspect was arrested in Gumaca, Quezon for another case.

Nora Orpillano, secretary of Platon, positively identified Eduardo Vidal, 27 of Sta. Ana Crossing, San Pablo City, as the alleged assassin of Platon.

Vidal is now under the custody of the Quezon provincial police office and awaits the filing of the proper case against him.

Platon was fatally shot by a lone gunman shortly after speaking in a campaign rally in Tuy town past midnight of May 7, last year, a week before the local 2001 elections. He was the Lakas-NUCD candidate for governor.

"My whole body trembled when they (police) presented the suspect to me," Orpillano said The STAR.

Orpillano positively identified the gunman when she saw the big scar on his left arm at the time Platon was being shot.

"I was about two meters away from the mayor and the gunman when it happened," Orpillano recalled.

She also narrated that the assassin was then kneeling down while shooting Mayor Platon.

"I clearly saw his scar because he was kneeling at that time," she added.

Investigation showed that Platon went to a store after delivering his speech to buy popcorn, when the gunman approached him and pumped bullets into his head.

According to a source, Vidal was arrested in Gumaca, Quezon sometime last December for robbery-hold-up, until he reportedly boasted to one of his drinking buddies that he was the one who shot Mayor Platon.

STAR sources said, a police asset of the Gumaca police was able to extract the information from an insider of the Bonnet Gang, of which Vidal is an alleged member.

Vidal was quoted by the "insider" as bragging during a drinking session that he single-handedly shot Mayor Platon in Tuy, Batangas.

The Gumaca, Quezon police immediately contacted Tanauan police authorities to bring the lone witness to Camp Guillermo Nakar in Lucena for identification.

Sources also said that Vidal might have connections with the New People Army because one of his companions, who was also arrested for robbery-holdup, was allegedly a rebel returnee.

The Melito Glor Command of the New People’s Army (NPA), which operates in Southern Tagalog, admitted responsibility for the assassination a day after Platon was killed.

Task Force Platon then came out with a cartographic sketch, which clearly showed similarity to the facial features of Vidal when Gumaca police came out with his photo the other day.

Platon’s wife Marie Vilma Bess went to Lucena City to confront the suspect. She, however, asserted that her husband’s killing was not totally solved with the arrest of Vidal "since the mastermind remains at large."

She expressed the belief that the killing was politically motivated, and that Vidal was only a hired killer.

Sources said Vidal’s wife is from Talisay, Batangas. — With Rene Alviar