03 January 2006
Judge, prosecutor of RTC Tayug in serious threats
TAYUG – A regional trial court judge as well as the assistant provincial prosecutor based here are under serious threats on their lives from still unidentified persons, following the dismissal for lack of probable cause of the murder—theft charge against the suspects in the high-profile Paas case.
Threatened were RTC Judge Ulysses Raciles Butuyan of Branch 51 as well as Assistant Provincial Prosecutor Noel C. Bince, Sr. who both hold office in the town’s justice hall.
Butuyan requested two police escorts from the Tayug police which Chief of Police Rhode Espero immediately granted.
This was after Butuyan received threatening text messages soon after dismissing the cases filed against the two accused in the brutal slaying of Pasig City Judge Estrellita Paas at their residence in Natividad town.
Butuyan suspects that the threat against him may have something to do with the Paas case but did not elaborate.
In the case of Assistant Provincial Prosecutor Bince, he believed that the attempt on the life of his son Noel F. Bince, Jr. 22, the evening Dec. 22 in front of their residence in Barangay B, Tayug was actually meant for him.
The younger Bince was hit on the foot by a bullet from a Cal. 45 pistol as he was opening the gate of their compound to park their car. He was fired upon by two men on a motorcycle.
Witnesses said the driver of the motorcycle was overheard talking in Ilocano chastising his companion for shooting the wrong man before they zoomed eastward.
The younger Bince was rushed to the Eastern Pangasinan District Hospital before he was transferred to a hospital in Manila.
Observers believed the threats on Butuyan and Bince may have come from the same group. Both officials handled the cases against the suspects in the Paas slay.
