Home 
They got the “gunman”, but the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) still hasn’t figured out who hired him to kill Cebu lawyer Richard William “Dick” Sison.
A murder complaint was filed yesterday against 30-year-old security guard Nemuel “Titing” Sumabong, who was arrested Tuesday morning in his rented room in barangay Camputhaw, Cebu City.
Sumabong cried during the inquest proceeding and insisted he was innocent.
The guard said he was at work in the morning of May 21 when Sison, a prominent lawyer, was ambushed while driving his pickup on V. Sotto Street in Cebu City.
The NBI said two witnesses positively identified Sumabong as the man who boarded a motorcycle on V. Sotto Street after the shooting.
Earlier accounts said a man in a red shirt, with his face uncovered, walked up to Sison’s car and fired a gun several times before fleeing on a motorbike with a companion.
The motive of the murder, however, remains a mysery.
Asked who was the mastermind of the killing, the NBI said this was still the subject of follow-up investigation.
“We still have to work on it,” said NBI-7 Regional Director Medardo de Lemos. Sumabong was given 10 days to file a counter affidavit.
A separate murder complaint was filed against the motorcycle driver in the ambush.
The NBI looked for the driver Tuesday night in Bogo City but the target had left the area an hour earlier.
Sumabong, a resident of barangay Banban, Bogo City, is a cousin of Joel Sumabong, who stands accused in robbery charges for the 2005 Land Bank of the Philippines heist in Bogo where about P9.4 million was taken.
The guard and Sison’s widow Dina had an emotional confrontation in a press confernce at the NBI yesterday.
She demanded justice.
“Kinahanglan gyud kang magbayad sa kamatayon sa akong bana. Unsay sala sa akong bana nga imo mang gipatay (You should pay for my husband's death. What has my husband done to you for you to have killed him),” she cried.
The guard, who was almost sobbing, repeatedly said he didn’t kill the lawyer and pleaded for witnesses to take another look at him.
He appealed to the “real killers” to surrender.
“Palihug na lang ug tahan, karon katawa lang mo diha pero ako diri nagsakripisyo,” (Please surrender. You are laughing now while I am the one suffering).”
Dina retorted: “Karon magpalouy-louy gyud ka kay nadakpadan naman ka (Now you act pitiful because you have been arrested).”
In denying the charges, Sumabong said Ricardo Lodonio, a fellow security guard of King David Security Agency, could attest that he was on duty at Motortown on Gochan Street in downtown Cebu City on May 21. (See separate story).
NBI officials and Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña presented Sumabong to the media yesterday.
Osmeña said the arrest showed that NBI was capable of solving crimes even as he stressed that the identity of the mastermind must be uncovered.
“We are going to find out who is behind this,” he told Sison's wife; daughters Charisse Guenever and Kathleen Mae; and son Richard Dino who were at the press conference at the NBI office.
Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Arturo Radaza, Sison's childhood friend and client, urged the NBI to continue its investigation.
“I sincerely appreciate the efforts of the NBI and other law enforcement agencies in trying to solve the murder and give justice to the victim and his family,” said Radaza in a statement.
“But this (capture) should not end here,” he said.
“The mastermind or those behind the murder should be unmasked. And to this goal, I encourage the NBI and other agencies to work harder and put the perpetrators behind bars where they belong.”
For the lawyer’s widow Dina, the arrest was an answered prayer.
She said that a day before Sumabong was picked up on Tuesday, d she went to the Mother Mary Shrine in Simala, Sibonga to seek the Blessed Virgin's help.
NBI’s De Lemos siad the security guard’s alibi was weak and couldn[t defeat the positive identification of the two witnesses, store employees.
In their joint affidavit, the witnesses said they were in their office along V. Sotto Street when they heard the gunshots across the street.
They saw an armed man walk away and boarded a waiting motorcycle driven by another man.
“We clearly saw the gunman because it was in broad day light and he (did not) wear a cap or any object that would cover his face,” they said.
One of the witnesses said he had eye contact with the gunman but only learned that the victim was Sison when he read the newspapers the next day.
Six days after the ambush on May 21, NBI agents went to their office and took the description of the gunman. An artist sketch was later drawn.
The NBI agents Rennan Oliva, Jose Ermie Monsanto, Jesus Manapat, Gregorio Algoso, Reynaldo Villordon Jr., Bernard dela Cruz and Gregorio Tomagan Jr. said a breakthrough in their investigation came when an asset tipped them off that the gunman was sighted.
The informant was told to closely watch the suspect and report his whreabouts.
When the suspect was spotted in Purok 8, barangay Camputhaw, the NBI brought one of the witnesses to the area.
The witness was able to single out a man in a dark T shirt and light blue pants, whom the NBI later identifed as Sumabong.
Agents brought Sumabong to the NBI office at Capitol Site for a police line up with other men. The witness pointed to him as the man who shot Sison. /With reports from Correspondent Chris Ligan and Reporter Dale Israel
