Rights lawyer shot dead

LEGAZPI CITY — A human rights lawyer was killed in an ambush in Gubat, Albay while he was on his way home from a court hearing, police said.

Senior Superintendent Joel Regondola, Sorsogon police director, said lawyer Gil Gujol, 50, was on board a van with his driver, Danilo France, en route to Sorsogon City when two men fired at him with caliber .45 pistols at about 10:30 a.m. in Barangay Cariedo, Gubat town.

Gujol died from gunshot wounds in the head and chest while he was being rushed to the hospital. Gubat is about 19 kilometers from Sorsogon City.

Reports said Gujol was handling cases involving a land dispute as well as estafa and murder when he was killed.

Last Monday afternoon, businessman Crisanto Frivaldo, a councilor of Irosin, Sorsogon, was shot dead by three men.

Crisanto was the brother of Maximo Frivaldo, coordinator of the militant group Bayan Muna in Irosin town, who was himself gunned down in 2005.

Gojul had served as the legal counsel of a captured communist rebel leader, a certain Mustaza, who eventually managed to post P100,000 bail.

Mustaza was the secretary of the New People’s Army’s Guerrilla Front 79 based in Sorsogon. He was captured in 2004.

Maj. Ronald Rosario, head of the Civil Relations Service (CRS) of the Armed Forces Southern Luzon Command, said the killings could have something to do with the coming anniversary of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

"The anniversary of the CPP-NPA will be on Dec. 26 and since there is no issue to take advantage of and to agitate and mobilize the people in Sorsogon against the government, we expect these ‘sacrificial’ killings," Rosario said.

Capt. Joven Gil Marquez, CRS head in Bicol, said the Frivaldo brothers were suspected of being military assets by the NPA’s Celso Minges Command operating in Sorsogon and Albay.

Meanwhile, Chief Superintendent Victor Barbo Boco, Bicol police director, said Task Force Usig, which is probing the deaths of activists in Bicol, said the gunslaying of Reinan Guran, a member of the League of Filipino Students (LFS), at a bus station in Bulan, Sorsogon is still under investigation.

So, too, with the killing of Cris Hugo, another LFS member, who was gunned down while walking along Washington Drive in Legazpi City last March 19.

Boco said charges have been filed against a suspect, a certain Nestor Villaflor, in the Aug. 28 killing of Bayan Muna member Ronard Comerciase.

Charges have also been filed against two suspects, Edgar Sevilla and Edgar Calag, both at large, in the gunslaying of Sotero Llamas, former head of the NPA in Bicol.