Suspicion as government officials fall to assassins

Manila: Heads of two government agencies fell to assassins’ bullets recently while a third allegedly committed suicide amid pressure to rig lucrative government energy contracts.

Senators aired suspicion with regards to corruption taking place in certain government organisations.

According to Senate president Aquilino Pimentel something suspicious is obviously going on when three government officials die in mysterious circumstances.

“When two of them, both from revenue collection agencies, are killed in such a short time, there must be something very sinister involved,” Pimentel said.

On November 17, Arturo Lachica, deputy commissioner of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and head of the agency’s Internal Administration Group, was shot several times by a man on a motorcycle in Manila’s Sampaloc district.

Lachia was driving his sedan.

On November 21, Jonas Amora, who heads the regional office of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) in Makati, was shot dead in a similar fashion in the city.

The BIR and the BOC are two of the country’s top revenue collection agencies.

“We should not discount the possibility that they were killed due to President Duterte’s ongoing campaign against corruption. We must redouble our efforts to catch the killers and redress the injustice against the families of the victims and against the Filipino people,” Pimentel said.

The death of the two government officials take place against the backdrop of the alleged suicide last November 9 of Francisco Villa Jr, director of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).

The 54-year-old government executive left a note at his Paranaque City residence saying he was being forced to railroad the public bidding for lucrative government energy contracts.