BACOLOD City – The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Region 6 filed murder and frustrated murder charges against 11 individuals who allegedly had a hand in an ambush incident involving a lawyer and her fiancé in Talisay City, Negros Occidental last month.
The NBI lodged the charges before the City Prosecutor’s Office in Talisay yesterday morning.
Atty. Erfe del Castillo and boyfriend Efren Palmares, a former policeman, were bound for Bacolod City from the Bacolod-Silay Airport on board a Porsche car when armed men peppered them with bullets around 10:45 p.m. on Dec. 21, a police report showed.
The shooting – which happened on the access road in Barangay Matab-ang, Talisay City – led to Palmares’ death.
It also left del Castillo injured.
According to the police, the suspects were riding a sports utility vehicle when they attacked the couple.
Among those accused in the complaints that NBI Region 6 director Max Salvador filed were three police officials, two noncommissioned police officers, a businesswoman, a lawyer, two civilians, a media practitioner, and two unidentified persons.
Del Castillo in a press conference she called for yesterday said the suspects all connived to assassinate her.
She added that the ambush was related to a property conflict over the Metro Inn Hotel in Bacolod City.
“I saw who shot me…That area in Talisay City was well-lighted so I remembered all of them,” del Castillo said./PN
