CEBU CITY – A controversial prosecutor was gunned down while driving her car here Thursday.
Police identified the victim as fiscal Mary Ann Castro.
Castro, 50, was a former assistant prosecutor at the Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office. She was detailed at the Masbate Provincial Prosecutor’s Office at the time she was killed.
Investigation showed Castro was driving a yellow Nissan Juke on Escario St. in Barangay Camputhaw when a motorcycle-riding assailant drove by and shot her at around 9:50 p.m.
Castro was still able to drive about 100 meters from where she was shot before her vehicle rammed the fence of a construction site on the opposite lane. She succumbed to a bullet wounds in the neck and body.
Her two children rushed to the crime scene when news about the incident broke out.
The Integrated Bar of the Philippines Cebu City chapter has condemned the killing. “Atty. Castro’s death again brings light to the spate of killings, which unquestionably manifest a pattern of deliberate targeting of lawyers handling controversial cases or holding high profile positions. To be sure, the violence that took these lawyers’ lives was defiantly committed in the open, as if intended to send a message that we are not safe and we should always watch our backs,” the IBP Cebu City chapter said.
While the “message is heard loud and clear,” the IBP Cebu City chapter said it “will not cower in our sworn duty as officers of the court and advocates of our clients – no matter who they are and what opinion anyone has on their guilt or innocence.”
“Lest it be mistaken, we do not claim that everyone in the legal profession is above reproach,” it added.
Senior Supt. Royina Garma, chief of the Cebu City Police Office, has created a special investigation task group to look into the killing.
Garma said police will check cases handled by Castro to determine if the killing was work-related or due to personal grudges.
Castro was a controversial figure during his 18-year stint at the Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office.
The Supreme Court slapped a six-month suspension on Castro after using her influence in asking the police to help her brother who complained about a defective vehicle he bought in 2001. Castro was also suspended for six months for filing separate petitions for annulment of marriage in two trial courts in Cebu in 2000.
Castro’s personal life was also controversial after he got involved with married men. She faced an administrative complaint filed by a woman before the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas for immorality and grave misconduct for allegedly having an extra-marital affair with the complainant’s husband.
Castro became even more controversial when he married Leodegreco “Greco” Sanchez, son of the late Cebu Vice Gov. Greg Sanchez, in Muslim rites. The two separated after two months.
There were also stories of Castro’s alleged close relationship with SPO1 Adonis Dumpit, who was killed by police and agents of the National Bureau of Investigation in an anti-drug operation in Tagbilaran City, Bohol last June 27, 2018.
Castro’s photo was included in a controversial tarpaulin that was put up in an overpass last February 23, 2018. The tarpaulin bore the photos of the late Albuera, Leyte Mayor Kerwin Espinosa, slain lawyer and Ronda, Cebu Mayor Jonah John Ungab, and former Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama.
The picture was reportedly taken in Albuera years ago when Espinosa took his oath as a member of the United Nationalist Alliance.
The photos of Espinosa and Ungab were painted with X marks, while Rama’s photo was encircled with the words “ikaw sunod” (you’re next).
Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra has ordered the National Bureau of Investigation to investigate the killing of Castro.
“I have immediately directed the NBI to investigate the ambush of prosecutor Mary Ann Castro and to identify the perpetrators at the soonest possible time,” Guevarra said. (Calvin Cordova and Martin Sadongdong with a report from Jeffrey Damicog)
