Crime does not pay

Hole of Justice
by Peter G. Jimenea

Crime does not pay!

Many years ago, a well-known criminal lawyer was shot dead inside the comfort room of the old Iloilo Provincial Capitol building where the different Courts were located. His assassin escaped and the case was recorded by the police as unsolved crime.

Some years later, another lawyer was also killed by unidentified assassins in front of his house at the presence of a five-year old son. The same incident was recorded an unsolved crime by policemen who were groping in the dark for identity of the suspect-killers.

Everything happens for a reason. There were so many speculations as to motive in the killing of lawyers. But their story as usual, disappeared in the course of time. What’s left behind was only a taint of the sad fate as case related murders.

Rumor mills were grinding overnight that the second lawyer‘s death was on order of a businessman being cuddled by an influential politician. The lawyer is said to have interest in the place of business and threatened the businessman to reclaim the turf as it is owned by the government.

That was a threat feeding revenge. So speculations went-on for over twenty years without any result as to the second death of another member of the bar. Worse, the two cases seemed to have been buried and can never be retrieved again.

In fact, the boy who saw the brutal murder of his father has already finished college and enrolled in the PNPA. He graduated with the rank of a lieutenant. His lawyer-father had introduced me to other lawyer-friends, prosecutors and judges, where I learned so much about Court cases and how money runs the show.  

They say you cannot write or tell convincing stories about crime without having a friendship with criminals who can give detailed information of what you want. The same is true with pretty-bad stories of clandestine business of scalawags in the police service without having a good rapport with these monkeys.

In the underworld, one who wants to mingle with crooks and hoodlums-in-uniform must be wise if not clever. In which case, I always observe camaraderie with a distance and never failed to remember that – discussion on delicate matters must be left on top of the table when you depart.

I was already in college when I chanced to befriend a mob nicknamed “little boy.” Deliberate or not, at one time he lamented over the uncollected balance for the price of a lawyer’s head. He claimed two of them carried out the gruesome killing for five thousand pesos (P5,000) only.

As he continued, they were paid a down payment of one-half (P2,500) to do the job with the promise to pay the remaining balance after accomplishment. However, they were paid on installment basis when they returned which made them look funny to other professional hired-killers.

Feeling they got screwed, he started singing like a canary. He said the businessman is the mastermind. Later, however, I learned he was stabbed dead with a bolo by a killer from under the house while sleeping on the bamboo floor.

Next to be killed was the mastermind. He was shot dead while sitting comfortably in front of his house along the roadside. A motorcycle riding tandem of a driver and back-rider did the job. The incident was also reported an unsolved crime. So crime does not pay?

The underworld in the city and province knew about the murders. There’s nothing significant in this story though, as it is not much of a public concern. But it reverberates throughout the world of criminals and beyond - to the godfathers we cannot command. If there is honor among thieves, what’s more for hired-guns?