Cordillera lawyer, pal knifed in gold deal

BAGUIO CITY — Hoping to raise funds for the Cordillera Regional Assembly (CRA) from profits from a three-kilo gold bar they intended to buy, lawyer Sergio Kawi instead ended up being stabbed by the gold dealers inside his own home in Tuba, Benguet last Sunday.

Kawi sustained two knife wounds in the left chest. His companion, engineer Abraham Pagaduan, was stabbed once also in the left chest.

Their attackers, identified as Jojo Labatian and a certain Mang Johnny, fled with Kawi’s licensed caliber .38 revolver and the P800,000 cash Kawi and his friends had raised to purchase the gold bar.

Kawi said they were ready to complete the deal inside his residence when one of the two gold dealers pulled out a caliber .45 pistol and pointed it at them, while the other one tied them with a rope and then stabbed them.

"We pretended that we were dead, prompting the two suspects to leave and take the gold bar and money," he recalled.

He said he was able to untie himself, got a knife and untied Pagaduan.

Kawi said the two suspects approached him for the gold bar deal last November.

"Our desire to raise funds to keep the CRA alive resulted in our near-death," he lamented.

For lack of government funding, the CRA and the Cordillera Executive Board (CRB) have become lame ducks since they were formed to serve as transitory bodies for the full autonomy of the Cordilleras, which has remained an administrative region.

Malacañang has ordered both the CRA and CRB dissolved. Kawi and other movers of Cordillera autonomy have questioned the constitutionality of the Palace order, arguing that Executive Order 220 signed by former President Corazon Aquino still subsists.