2 convicted for NV vice mayor’s killing

The Manila regional trial court sentenced two farmers to 40 years in jail yesterday for the 2000 gunslaying of the vice mayor of a Nueva Vizcaya town.

Judge Teresa Soriaso, of Manila RTC Branch 27, found Donato Carasco and Cesar Sangguyo guilty of killing, together with four accomplices, Cesar Agustin Lacanilao, then the vice mayor of Alfonso Castañeda town.

Aside from the penalty of reclusion perpetua, the court also ordered Carasco and Sangguyo to pay Lacanilao’s heirs the sum of P50,000 as indemnity, P50,000 for moral damages, P25,000 for exemplary damages, and P59,928.50 for actual damages.

In his 10-page decision, Soriaso said he was convinced that treachery attended Lacanilao’s killing.

Court records showed that at about 6:20 p.m. of Dec. 22, 2000, Lacanilao’s wife, Elisa, was in the praying room of their house in Barangay Lublub when she heard footsteps.

She went out of the prayer room and saw Sangguyo clad in fatigue uniform and carrying a long firearm. Along with four other armed men, Sangguyo walked into the Lacanilaos’ well-lit living room.

Villacorta claimed they were looking for Lacanilao’s driver who he alleged raped a certain Maria Aurora. But the vice mayor replied that his driver had gone home.

Villacorta then said that they would just take the 39-year-old vice mayor instead. Elisa then embraced her husband but the armed men broke them apart, dragged her out of the house and pushed her to the ground. It was at this juncture when she heard a gunshot.

When she looked through the window, she saw her husband lying on the floor wounded and Villacorta pointing a gun at the direction of her son, Alvin Cesar, 20. Villacorta then trained his gun at Lacanilao and shot him four more times before his group escaped.

Police arrived some 30 minutes later and they arrested Carasco and Sangguyo.

Police said Lacanilao sustained five gunshot wounds — two in the right cheek, and one each in the right shoulder, right hand and neck.