SO MANY PRINCIPALS. The non-lawyers among us are given a tutorial on legal terms applied to participants in a murder where there are several participants, such as the killing of broadcaster Percy Lapid a.k.a. Percival Mabasa, and alleged middleman Jun Villamor a.k.a. Cristito Palana.
Check out the legal terms, for principals alone:
[] Principals by inducement or "masterminds" -- former Bureau of Corrections director general Gerald Bantag and Bucor deputy security officer Ricardo Zulueta.
[] Principals by indispensable cooperation or "middlemen/brokers" -- prisoners Denver Mayores, Alvin Labra, Aldrin Galicia, and Aline Penaredonda, Mario Alvarez and Joseph Georfo.
[] Principals by direct participation or "killers" -- Christam Ramac, Ricky Salgado, Ronnie de la Cruz, and Joel Reyes.
Add the legal terms to the politically correct name of PDL or persons deprived of liberty, for prisoners or inmates.
BIG-TIME PRODUCTION. If it were a movie, it was a big-budget project (P.55 million for the shooting alone), with multiple cast of plotters, brokers and killers.
How many would it take to execute one broadcaster who prided on speedy talk, not fast gunfire? "Lapid Fire," his commentary program's name merely plays on the phrase "rapid fire," from his mouth, not from a gun.
There were so many people involved in the killing that the complaint filed with the Justice Department prosecutor general had a flow chart to help explain the charges.
To carry out the killing, it took two gangs inside the New Bilibid Prison. (Obviously, the descriptive "new" was apt only after the prison was opened in 1940, not seven decades later.)
BASIC ON CONTRACT KILLING. Bantag was the brains? So the complaints say. If true, he missed or ignored the basic rule on hiring a killer: no one and nothing must be linked to the mastermind.
Apparently, he hadn't learned from the movies on contract killing: should be clean, not messy; should involve only one or two other persons who're usually irrevocably silenced afterwards.
Unless, of course, the whole scenario depicted by police and DOJ were an elaborate concoction, a colossal frame-up. Which Bantag and company of respondents must disprove, after the prosecution presents its case.
PANELO ON 2 MASTERMINDS. Former presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo couldn't believe there were two masterminds. Only one would've the motive, as only Bantag from Bucor was attacked in the "Lapid Fire" commentaries.
Panelo must see it as he does in common practice. The prosecutors may be using the legal concept of crime participants. Deputy security officer Zulueta, charged with Bantag as mastermind, was probably just helping plan the murder but would still fall under principal by inducement.