Police are looking into the motive behind the killing of an assistant special prosecutor of the Office of the Ombudsman in Quezon City on Monday.
Authorities said prosecutor Madonna Joy Tanyag, 33, who was five months pregnant, was walking in front of a lottery outlet on Visayas Avenue in Barangay Vasra when unidentified men stabbed her to death at 11:20 a.m.
Tanyag suffered three stab wounds. She was on her way back to the Office of the Ombudsman after buying at a milk tea store when the attack happened.
A barangay councilor, Oliver Pascasio, and Segundo Antenor took the prosecutor to East Avenue Medical Center, where she was declared dead on arrival.
Tanyag was handling graft cases in her tenure at the Ombudsman.
Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales requested the Philippine National Police to thoroughly investigate Tanyag’s death and ensure the perpetrators are immediately caught.
“The Office will leave no stone unturned in solving the case,” Morales said.
“The Office extends its deepest condolences to the family of ASP Tanyag,” she added.
The attack came two weeks after Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra ordered the National Bureau of Investigation to probe the slaying of retired Ozamiz prosecutor Geronimo Marabe Jr.
Marabe was gunned down by unidentified men while driving in Barangay 50th District, Ozamiz City, Misamis Occidental on May 22.
He was the 14th prosecutor killed in the last 26 years, according to the National Prosecution Service, which condemned his killing and called for prosecutors to be armed and given self-defense training.
Police spokesperson Chief Supt. John Bulalacao previously said Marabe was a public prosecutor in several cases, including those involving the Parojinog family in Misamis.
That family’s patriarch, the late Ozamiz City mayor Reynaldo Parojinog, was tagged by police as involved in the illegal drug trade.
Parojinog and 14 others were killed in a police raid in July last year. His son and daughter were arrested.
According to the NPS, other prosecutors killed since 1992, mostly in the line of duty, are Macario Balansag, Antonino Ruiz, Julio Talomo, Godofredo Paceno Jr., Mscadatar Marsangca, Akilali Balt, Alexander Sandoval, Rolando Acido, Johanne Noel Mingoa, Diosdado Azarcon, Maria “Kit” Ronatay, Reymund Luna and Rogelio Velasco.