Lawyer Nicolas Gomez Jr., 67, was walking alone past a bakery in downtown Valencia in Bukidnon province on Sunday night when he was shot several times by one of two men riding on an XRM motorcycle.
“He was supposed to appear [in] court in Malaybalay today (Monday),” Col. Surki Sereñas, Valencia police chief, said in an interview.
While Sereñas surmised that the killing was related to a land dispute, it nevertheless served to underscore the phenomenon of extrajudicial killings now involving lawyers among the fatalities — a public concern also expressed by the country’s bar organization.