Don't kill them, or you're dead meat!

For the second time since I became a reporter I’ve already witnessed two promulgations of two celebrated cases.

The first one was the murder case of Pagadian City broadcaster Edgar Damalerio. And his killer, former policeman Guillermo Wapille, was sentenced to seclusion perpetua.

It was actually great to personally see the judge hand down penalties to the guilty especially if the crime is as big as murder.

Yeah, I have personal conviction against murderers. And most of them really looked guilty in court, I should know I was a court reporter for six months.

I knew the court would find Wapille guilty. The prosecution was really good (they had the best prosecution lawyers in town-city prosecutor Nicolas Sellon and two of his assistants). While the defense witnesses' testimonies were very lame. It was also a major factor to the prosecution’s win when the defense did not present Wapille to testify.

And just this afternoon, after almost a month of waiting Judge Gako convicted another media man murderer and this time the penalty was death.

I could not believe my ears when he said it. Death man, that was really big-time. But the culprit Edgar Belandres well deserved it! And the judge studied very carefully the evidences before meting him the maximum penalty.

There was actually apprehension that the accused might be acquitted while the 19-page decision was read. I personally felt it especially when it came to the part that the judge said that the three prosecution witnesses, who positively identified the gunman as Belandres, could not even identify the color of the helmet reportedly used by Belandres, thus, it would be impossible for them to identify the man they only saw once.

But thanks to the mobile phones. It was from Belandres’ text messages found from the The Freeman photojournalist’s cell phone that linked him to the crime. He was just too casual to walk out of the crime scene while leaving behind him the photog’s cellphone, which still carried his messages telling they should meet at the place. The very place where he shot him. Better luck next time noy.

We are finally over it. The newsroom is happy with the news, apart from it has a very good story for tomorrow’s banner.

And I, being a friend to our photog, personally went there to see the end of it. Besides, I was there when the prosecution laid all its evidence and the defense tried to discredit it.

May my friend Allan Dizon, whom I saw when he came out from the morque with his face still covered with blood from the operation he had just went through although eventually ending up dead, finally rest in peace.

But sorry friend this is not the right time to say “see ya!”

Just taa taa, okay?