Murder, Inc.

Let’s hope the mastermind in the murder of journalist Percy Lapid isn’t home free yet.

Even before the police could disclose the identity of the inmate in the New Bilibid Prison who reportedly contracted the hired guns in the murder, it was announced yesterday that the inmate died Tuesday in the NBP.

Police said the inmate, now identified as Crisanto Villamor Jr., 42, served as liaison or middleman, and was supposed to lead probers to the mastermind who took out the contract for the hit.

Villamor was supposed to have already been secured by authorities. Now we are told that he’s dead under circumstances that as of yesterday were hazy even to the justice secretary, whose department has jurisdiction over the NBP.

Who has the power (and the motive) to neutralize, inside the NBP, a key suspect in this high-profile case?

In the next Impunity Index, the Philippines could earn the top spot for unsolved journalist killings.

This case also illustrates how easy it is to find hired guns in this country.

In the 2007 race, a member of an entrenched political clan in a province with one of the highest incidences of political assassinations told me she feared for her safety.

Over the years, three of her relatives had been assassinated, with several members of the rival clan later convicted of the murders. The family decided to field her in the race for Congress, hoping that their rivals would spare a woman.

In November 2009, Esmael Mangudadatu had the same hope about gender sensitivity. While he himself was the one who sought the governor’s post in Maguindanao, he sent his female relatives to file his certificate of candidacy, accompanied by a convoy of journalists.

We all know where that journey ended: on a grassy hilltop where his rival Andal Ampatuan Jr. led the clan’s private army in the massacre of Mangudadatu’s wife, two sisters, lawyers, aides plus 32 accompanying media workers.

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The clan of the candidate in 2007 at least was correct about their rivals: she was left unharmed, although she was trounced, through what she believes was a combination of voter intimidation and massive vote buying.

But during the campaign period, she worried about her safety, because it was so cheap and easy, she said, to find a hired gun in their province.

For as low as P100,000, you could get someone to pull the trigger, she told me. Buying the hitman’s lifetime silence would cost more – an average of P5 million, which usually went to the killer’s family.

In many parts of the country, P5 million is a fortune that cannot be earned in a lifetime. This is even more so in that province, one of the country’s poorest.

Amid such poverty, there is no lack of people willing to kill for a fee.

Such stories of desperation in the countryside make me believe the story that the self-confessed triggerman in the murder of broadcaster Percy Lapid is a hired gun.

Joel Escorial reportedly surrendered to the Philippine National Police after seeing his image, taken from surveillance video, flashed on the news, with a reward of P6.5 million dangled for his capture.

PNP spokesperson Col. Jean Fajardo said Escorial has implied involvement in other contract killings.

Escorial told police the gun he used to kill Lapid had been used in previous hits, Fajardo told “The Chiefs” Wednesday on One News.

The PNP has said ballistics tests on the gun Escorial surrendered matched the slugs recovered at the crime scene in Las Piñas.

Escorial’s reenactment of the murder also matched surveillance video footage, according to Lapid’s brother, journalist Roy Mabasa.

Like many people, Mabasa had initially doubted Escorial’s story, and openly expressed hope that the suspect was not simply a fall guy amid public pressure on the PNP to solve the case.

But after his talk with Escorial during the reenactment, and based on the text message thread on the confessed killer’s cell phone, Mabasa is prepared to grant the PNP the presumption of regularity in its probe.

On Wednesday, Mabasa filed the murder complaint against Escorial and two others the suspect had implicated in the hit.

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Mabasa and his relatives were waiting for the results of follow-up operations on the rest of Escorial’s story, including the middleman in the NBP. This story is now a dead end.

Perhaps they can at least find out who paid the P550,000 for the hit, P140,000 of which was deposited in Escorial’s bank account. Escorial has surrendered his bank deposit booklet to police, so there should be no problem with the bank lifting secrecy laws and disclosing the source of the funds.

Until the mastermind is caught, the PNP is not yet disclosing the likely motive for the hit.

Fajardo told The Chiefs that Escorial and the NBP middleman appeared to be part of a gun-for-hire ring. But she said the PNP is still verifying Escorial’s claim of involvement in previous contract killings, and if the gang specifically targeted a particular group such as journalists.

There are at least two major reasons why hired guns thrive. One is the ease of obtaining guns. Another is the near-certainty of getting away with murder – and making money out of it.

These days, motorcycles have made it easier to carry out hits. Nearly all drive-by shootings are carried out by gunmen on motorcycles, their identities obscured by helmets and jackets. Pandemic masks have added to the ease of concealing identities.

For certain people, working as a hired gun can be a lucrative and relatively easy way of making a quick buck. And freedom from arrest can be assured, especially if the one taking out the contract is an influential public official with control over the pillars of the criminal justice system.

Sadly, it looks like we’re seeing this again in the case of Percy Lapid.