The Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS) today announced a major breakthrough in the Sunday night killing of newspaper columnist Jupiter Gonzales and his companion in Arayat, Pampanga.
PTFoMS Executive Director Undersecretary Joel Sy Egco said they are no longer facing a blank wall in their investigations since they have already established the identity of the alleged gunman who shot Gonzales and his friend, Christopher Tiongson, inside the car owned by the slain journalist. Egco also stressed that the motive behind the killing is “very strong”, adding that “initial investigations indicated it was not related to media work at all.”
The PTFoMS chief said the motive and the identity of the lone gunman will be withheld until formal charges have been filed.
Egco and PTFoMS investigators led by PLTCOL EDER COLLANTES and PLTCOL RECHIE DULDULAO (ret), went to Arayat last Monday to conduct their own investigation on the twin killings. The group had a case briefing with local probers, visited the crime scene and conferred and condoled with the families of the victims.
“We are now following up a very strong lead, fact is, we now have a
POI (Person of Interest) and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) Central Luzon and the Arayat police are now in the process of building up an airtight case,” said Egco.
“Our initial investigation showed that Gonzales knew his killer. In fact, the gunman first boarded the left backseat of the victim’s car and presumably spoke with the victims. A CCTV footage shows that the gunman stepped out of the vehicle after about four minutes and opened the driver side in an apparent attempt to commandeer the vehicle. However, Gonzales was still able to drive 50 meters away until he hit a flowerbox,” said Egco.
Probers believe the victims were shot at pointblank range inside the vehicle. Tiongson could have been shot first in the head and died instantly while Gonzales, although initially wounded, was “finished” while attempting to flee.
Egco and other officials, including Arayat Police chief LTCOL DALE SOLIBA, surmised that the gunman and the victims had a heated argument sometime during the shooter’s four-minute stay in the backseat.
“I watched a CCTV footage where the car of the victims and the gunman are clearly seen. Since the scene of the crime is just a few meters away from the local carnival, or peryahan, and at a busy intersection, there were many people who witnessed the incident up to the time when the gunman took off on a commandeered motorcycle,” Egco further said.
The Palace official, however, assured that regardless of the reasons why the victims were in the area, their murder shall not go unpunished.
Gonzales wrote a column for the tabloid Remate and was known for being a staunch critic of illegal gambling proliferating in local carnivals, or peryahan/pergalan in street parlance.
The killer, it was later established, worked at the said “peryahan.”
The Task Force expects charges to be filed “in the next few days” after exhaustive follow-up investigations by the police.
