FINALLY, there was good news for the family of slain radio block-timer Percy Lapid on Tuesday, thanks to the good old fashioned police work done by the Special Investigation Task Group Lapid and the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group which prompted a man who confessed to have fired the shots that killed the radioman to surrender.

Credit goes to the SITG Lapid created by National Capital Region Police Office chief, Brigadier General Jonnnel Estomo and the PNP-CIDG headed by Brig. Gen. Ronald Lee for this positive news. I doff my hats to these officers as I wish them all the best as they move to connect the dots and build more solid pieces of evidence against the remaining suspects, specifically their ‘mastermind’ in order to send them to jail for life.

I learned that the confessed gunman identified as Joel Estorial, a 39-year old native of Leyte residing at Block 25, Lot 30 in Gabriela Silang Street in Quezon City yielded to the CIDG Region 4-A. In turn, Brig. Gen. Lee ordered his men to turn over the suspect to the SITG Lapid.

It turned out that after seeing the suspect’s picture on television, members of the CIDG Region 4-A sensed they have a suspect in mind and went to work. Officers of the unit talked with relatives of the accused and told them to ask the suspect to surrender if he is really the one in the picture.

When he learned that his identity has been unmasked, the suspect who is said to have been a ‘police asset’ in the past until he became a gun-for-hire, yielded and turned over a gun he used to shoot the victim. The SITG Lapid then quickly buckled down to work and sent the pistol to the PNP Forensic Group for a cross-matching of the spent cartridges found at the scene of the Lapid assassination.

The move yielded positive result as PNP Forensic Group experts discovered that the empty cartridges recovered at the scene of the Lapid killing came from the same gun turned over by the accused. It’s really not a case closed but I think we’re nearing it.

On Tuesday morning, DILG Secretary Benjamin ‘Benhur’ Abalos Jr. announced the surrender of the suspect who confessed to have shot to death the 63-year old Lapid outside a subdivision in Las Piñas City last October 3 after a Bilibid prison ‘insider’ contracted them to do the hit job for P550,000.

The DILG chief was joined by Brig. Gen. Estomo, PNP Deputy Chief for Administration and Officer-in-Charge, Lieutenant Gen. Rhodel Sermonia in presenting the suspect who happened to be a native of Leyte. Sermonia was named as PNP-OIC in the absence of PNP chief, General Jun Azurin who is in India attending an Interpol summit.

Sec. Abalos said that the suspect who was made to wear a Kevlar helmet and a bullet-proof vest surrendered ‘out of fear for his safety. He said that the suspect’s image was captured in CCTV recordings gathered by the SITG Lapid created to look into the radioman’s murder.

“Siya talaga ang gunman. Even the gun recovered from his possession matched the casing recovered at the crime scene during a ballistics cross-matching,” Sec. Abalos said.

The official said that the suspect identified brothers Edmund,30; and Israel Dimaculangan,35; and one alias ‘Orly’ as his cohorts in the plot to kill Lapid. He called on the three to also surrender.

I was present when the suspect who was made to sit between Sec. Abalos and Brig. Gen. Estomo, uttered that he surrendered to the police after his face was splashed on television. “Natakot po ako,” he said even as he was asked by Sec. Abalos to just say the truth.

Speaking in the vernacular, the suspect said he and the Dimaculangan brothers and ‘Orly’ met before the killing with ‘Orly’ driving the motorcycle he was riding. He claimed that Israel told them during their meeting “kung sino matapat ke Percy, siya ang babaril.” The suspect said he shot the victim when he happened to be very near him.

The confessed killer claimed that somebody from Bilibid Prisons asked them to do the ‘contract killing.’ He did not elaborate but the SITG Abalos is now in the process of identifying the ‘brains’ behind the Lapid murder.

Sec. Abalos said that the suspect made an extra-judicial confession detailing the facts and circumstances regarding the killing of Lapid for P550,000. True enough, the suspect confessed that there were six of them involved n the plot and that his share was P140,000.

After the suspect made those statements, Sec. Abalos ordered that he be led outside the jampacked conference room. The supposed press conference scheduled by the DILG also did not push thru.

However, he answered back at queries shouted by some reporters. “Mahirap mag-conclude kung sino ang mastermind pa kasi we base it all on hard evidence,” he said.

Southern Police District director, newly-minted Brig. Gen. Kirby Kraft said that the suspect surrendered on Monday even as he asked the media to allow them to have more time in interviewing the suspect.

Sec. Abalos said that the P6.5 million bounty offered for the capture of the suspects in the Lapid killing will remain untouched since the suspect surrendered. Lawyer Alexander Lopez first offered a P1 million reward for any tipster that would lead the police to the killers. Sec. Abalos likewise said he will also give a P500,000 reward out from his own pocket to the informant.

Last week, House Speaker Ferdinand Martin T. Romualdez said they will offer a P5 million reward for any information that would lead to the arrest of the killers. The question right now is who will pay P550,000 to murder a reported hard-hitting broadcaster? That man must be rich, very rich.