Breakthrough in Lagman killing

Police yesterday announced a breakthrough in the February 6 killing of a top labour confederation leader after they tagged a member of a communist hit squad as the triggerman in the assassination.

Police said the driver of Nilo de la Cruz, a ranking leader of the communist splinter group, the Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPA-ABB), has been identified as one of the assassins in the slaying of Filemon "Popoy" Lagman, chairman of the left-wing Confed-eration of Filipino Workers (BMP).

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Deputy Director General Leandro Mendoza made the disclosure as he identified the suspect as a certain "Ka (Comrade) Joebel," while the backup gunman was identified as "Ka Edcel." The third suspect remains unidentified.

Lagman was supposed to attend a forum with lawyers at the University of the Philippines in suburban Quezon City when two of the three suspects shot him at close range in the head with pistols last February6.

Lagman headed the 130,000 strong BMP.

Mendoza said they are now hot on the trail of the suspects whom they believe are still in Metro Manila. PNP community relations chief Director Thompson Lantion said both suspects were close to Dela Cruz, once a close associate of Lagman when they were both ranking leaders of the mainstream Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

But Dela Cruz, in an interview, denied links to Lagman's killing. He called the police charges "irresponsible" and insisted he did not have a driver. "I categorical deny any involvement," he said. Both Dela Cruz and Lagman once headed the ABB, a notorious urban partisan arm created by the CPP to assassinate political and military personalities in Metro Manila during the mid-1980s.

Early in the 1990s, Lagman and Dela Cruz broke away from CPP, led by its founder, Jose Ma. Sison and formed an underground splinter group. However, the two soon parted ways over financial issues leading to Dela Cruz's defection to the RPA which had earlier split form the CPP.

Lantion said the killers were identified, citing the ballistic findings on the slugs recovered from the crime scene which showed that the weapon, a .45 calibre pistol, was also the same handgun used in the 1998 killing of Filipino-Chinese trader Wilson Ong.

The descriptions made of the gunmen of Lagman also matched those provided by witnesses in the Ong slaying, he added. Dante Lagman has identified one of his father's killers which he described as a "familiar face." Police said the younger Lagman even met the triggerman at the stairway, just before his father was shot down.