By Minka Tiangco
A Manila court found a former National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agent guilty of attempted homicide after shooting his fellow agent at an NBI office in 2013.
Presiding Judge Daniel Villanueva of the Manila City Regional Trial Court Branch 49 convicted NBI Special Investigator (SI) Nestor Pascual and sentenced him to six months of arresto mayor as minimum term, to four years and two months of prision correctional as maximum term.
Pascual shot NBI SI Joselito Guillen four times during a party at the NBI-National Capital Region (NCR) office on Taft Avenue in Manila in January, 2013.
Prior to the shooting, the accused was allegedly drunk and was claiming that someone was trying to kill him. Guillen, who saw that Pascual was still carrying a caliber-40 pistol, unloaded its magazine. But Pascual reloaded his gun and, after a brief tug-of-war with Guillen, fired at him.
Guillen suffered from gunshot wounds on the chest and the back and a fractured hand.
In his seven-page decision, Villanueva said the shooting appeared to be intentional and motivated by anger.
"At the precise team in question, there was no apparent or imminent threat against his person or security. He was inside the premises of the NBI. There was no allegation by anyone, or by himself for that matter, that some colleague or some person had threatened, was threatening him or had posed a threat to him. In fact, an amiable, happy social event was in progress," Villanueva said in his decision.
"Therefore, by inference, being a professional law enforcer of the premier and renowned national criminal investigative agency, his attempt to use his firearm to fire several shots, was for a lethal, aggressive purpose, to hit, to hurt, and kill somebody," he added.
During the trial, Pascual argued that he was not drunk during the incident and that he would not have shot Guillen if he did not grab his gun.
Villanueva said that if it was true that Pascual was in a clear and not intoxicated during the incident, further proving that the shooting was not accidental.