Crime of passion
There is a new development in the Enzo Pastor murder case. The champion race car driver was murdered in cold-blood last June 12 while on his way to another race in Batangas. Pastor was with his assistant who was also wounded in the shooting. After more than two months of hard police work, a break in the case happened last Saturday. A policeman, PO2 Edgar Angel who was arrested for selling shabu in a buy-bust operation in Libis, Quezon City, confessed to being the gunman in the killing of Pastor, and pointed to businessman Domingo de Guzman III as the one who hired him. A fee of one hundred thousand pesos was paid to Angel, with the promise of a "bonus" once the job was done. Authorities saw an opportunity to catch de Guzman red-handed. A meet was set for Angel to receive the "bonus", with de Guzman unaware that he was already in police custody. Once the exchange was made, he was immediately arrested.
Apparently, de Guzman was having an affair with pastor's wife, Dahlia Guerrero Pastor. With this information, Dahlia is now considered a suspect in her husband's murder. She remains at large. The Bureau of Immigration also considers her a person of interest, checking if she has left the country. I hope she hasn't been able to do so, or else it becomes another lost opportunity to bring a suspected criminal to justice. I pity the two children Enzo left behind.
So this whole thing was apparently a crime of passion. A love triangle, as police see it. I really don't get it. Was Enzo murdered so de Guzman and Guerrero could live together? If the marriage was no longer working, why not just separate? And now that de Guzman is in custody and Guerrero on the run, what becomes of their grand plan now? Really, what were they thinking? Such is the mindset of those involved in crimes of passion, where nothing else matters than a chance to be together. Or is there some other reason behind the crime?
What bothers me more is that a policeman was the hired gun. Is this the usual sideline of police nowadays? Selling illegal drugs and guns for hire? I'm sure there are many police officers who are true to their jobs of protecting and serving the public. But how is the ordinary citizen to know crime fighter from criminal if both wear the same uniform and carry the same badges? There must be a way to weed out these vermin. The image of the Philippine National Police has taken a beating over the past decades. They could very well do without the likes of a PO2 Edgar Angel in their ranks. The ranks must be purged. For now, we laud the effort made by the special task force formed to solve the crime of the murder of Enzo Pastor.
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