Angry husband shoots wife, lawyer dead inside court room

By Ben Gines Jr.

11/16/2007

An angry husband who managed to slip past a security detail at the Las Pinas Regional Trial Court (RTC) yesterday shot dead his estranged wife after she filed a suit to have their marriage annulled and her woman lawyer inside a court room.

Alan Tubale, 53, pulled out a gun and fired on Lolita Tubale, 51, and her lawyer Rebecca Basas, 57, as they waited for the hearing to start.

Court personnel rushed the two women to the Perpetual Help Medical Center where Lolita and Basas died.

Senior Insp. Jan Dale Sulit, chief of the city police investigation section, said Lolita suffered a bullet wound at the back of her head.

Initial investigation showed the court room shooting occurred minutes before the hearing on Tubale’s annulment case at the sala of RTC Branch 199 Judge Joselito Vibandor.

Vibandor’s sala had just been transferred to the building which is still being renovated.

Sulit said there was an obvious security lapse at the trial court which enabled the suspect to get inside the court room with a gun.

The fatalities were seated inside the court room when the attack took place.

A manhunt was immediately ordered by Las Piñas City police chief Senior Supt. Amando Clifton Empiso for the arrest of the suspect.

Yesterday’s incident was the second incident that happened inside a court room this year.

A hostage drama at the Taguig City Hall of Justice last March ended with the police gunning down hostage-taker Almario Bautista.

Bautista held hostage Branch 266 clerk of court Atty. Dona Donuan and stenographer Liwanag Saloma, Atty. Frederick Vallestero and Gina Ramos.

Tension mounted when Bautista, a stuntman, engaged responding policemen in a gunbattle.

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