Targets

The most serious threat I encountered as a lawyer was eight years ago, just over a year after taking my oath. A client had asked me to accompany her to the house of her creditor to demand the return of the copy of her land title. Clueless of what might happen, being almost trapped in a slum area full of hostile people was farthest from my mind then.

While I emerged from that experience relatively unscathed, I berated myself and my client for our failure to assess the situation properly before going into what could have been a lion’s den.

Anyway, since then I promised myself never to appear again on behalf of a client in any forum other than the court or a government agency. The courts were well-guarded and safe, or so I thought.

In 2013, a Canadian litigant shot three people including a lady prosecutor inside the Marcelo Fernan Cebu City Hall of Justice. The prosecutor survived the shooting rampage but the two others, a doctor and his lawyer, were killed. Shortly thereafter, the assailant shot himself to death.

Additional security measures were put in place since then, and the incident was never repeated, until recently.

Lawyer Jonnah John Ungab was killed in an ambush around noon in February 2018 shortly after emerging from the Qimonda Building, the new location of the Cebu City Hall of Justice. In May this year, a police captain, only a year short of retirement, was gunned down by men riding in tandem a couple of blocks away from the same hall of justice building where he just came from to attend a hearing.

Yesterday morning, lawyer Inocencio dela Cerna heard three successive gunshots while exiting Qimonda Building, according to a report by The FREEMAN’s Iris Mascardo and Rowena Capistrano. It then became clear to him that he was the target of motorcycle riding men wearing full-faced helmets.

Considering that Atty. Dela Cerna is a prominent lawyer, the planned hit operation against him must have cost the mastermind a fortune. Dela Cerna is well-connected to the police and is well-respected in the legal community. Yet the attackers were so brazen and determined to get him that they chased his SUV several hundred meters toward a traffic junction near Pier 3 before escaping when they saw Dela Cerna trying to return fire.

Fortunately, Dela Cerna survived the ambush with only a few scratches from the glass shards of his car window which bore 11 bullet holes.

“The hall of justice is where people come to seek justice. And then people coming out from here get shot and killed? Por bida, what is happening?” Regional Trial Court – Cebu City Executive Judge Macaundas Hadjirasul said in an interview with CDN Digital. I share in Judge Hadjirasul’s exasperation and concern.

In a statement, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines-Cebu Chapter said: “This latest attack directed to a lawyer in the person of Atty. Dela Cerna, is not only an attack against the life of an officer of the court, but is also an assault to the rule of law and to the sensibilities of peace-loving Cebuanos.

“We call on the police to immediately solve this ambush and swiftly bring the perpetrators to justice. IBP Cebu join in solidarity with the community in denouncing violence and impunity, as we reaffirm our pledge to fulfill our role as vanguards of the rule of law and justice in society, despite the dangers.”