An Execution in San Juan

Report by :  Kristine Felisse Mangunay 
Two dead bodies found by barangay patrol
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/100977/metrobriefs-127

Patrolling officials of Barangay Maytunas in San Juan City found two dead bodies in a dimly lit area Saturday night. Senior Supt. Rainier Espina, San Juan chief of police, said both victims, possibly in their early and mid-30s, were handcuffed and blindfolded with a masking tape.

Espina said there were details in the scene that seem to indicate whoever killed the men did not want police to have a difficult time in conducting their investigation. 

He said three bullet shells that were found in the scene had been placed on the stomach of the younger victim. The shells were from a .45 cal. revolver, Espina said, and seemed to be consistent with the bullet wounds found in the forehead of the elder victim, and the right and left temples of the younger one. 

Two men executed in Quiapo

Manila Police District homicide section head Inspector Armando Macaraeg described one of the slain men as 20-28 years old, six-feet tall, of medium build, and clad in a gray shirt and cargo short pants. The man had a ring on his left ear lobe.

The other, Macaraeg said, was between 30 and 40 years old, five-foot-one tall, and clad in a white shirt and white printed short pants. He had his face wrapped in packing tape.

Macaraeg said both men had their hands tied behind their backs and their feet bound with nylon cord. Oddly, Macaraeg pointed out, the bodies were piled up in the shape of a cross, with the victim in his 20s lying across the other man’s body.

“One had bullet wounds in the face and in the back, while the other had a gunshot wound in the stomach and had a contusion on the forehead,” Macaraeg said, adding both were shot with a .45-caliber pistol.

Police Officer 3 Giovanni Valera, case investigator, said that a witness reported hearing four shot and when he looked out of his window he saw a gray sedan and two scooters speeding away from their neighborhood toward the direction of Claro M. Recto Avenue.

2 victims of summary execution found in Quiapo
By Jeannette Andrade, Philippine Daily Inquirer
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/metro/view/20101210-308162/2-victims-of-summary-execution-found-in-Quiapo

Masked Gunman

A 27-year-old man was shot dead by a masked gunman here on Wednesday evening, raising suspicion that a copycat of the shadowy vigilante group blamed for the deaths of at least 900 people in Southern Mindanao since 1990s has become active anew.

Al Amen Magarang Abdullah was playing computer games inside an Internet café along First Crumb St. here around 9:30 p.m. when the gunman arrived with another companion and shot him dead, Chief Inspector Anthony Padua, city police director, said.

Quoting witnesses, Padua said the gunman casually entered the Internet café' and shot Magarang. He said the gunman left without a fuss and fled onboard the motorcycle driven by his companion. He said the victim died instantly.

Police investigators said they recovered two slugs and two spent shells of a .45 caliber pistol from the crime scene.

Some residents, who spoke to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, said Abdullah's death could be the handiwork of the so-called Digos Death Squad.

READ THE COMPLETE REPORT AT:

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/regions/view/20090723-216895/Man-shot-dead-in-Internet-caf-in-Digos

The Suicide Squad

On April 25, 2008, the Inquirer posted a report about the suicide of an army colonel.

The body of a bemedalled colonel has been found in the Army headquarters with a gunshot wound in the head, and police investigators are talking suicide.

According to a report received by the Army at around 8:30 a.m. Thursday, Col. Roberto Caldeo, 48, was found lifeless in his quarters in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City, Army spokesperson Lt. Col. Ernesto Torres said.

A follow-up report revealed that Col. Caldeo was the third veteran of the 2000 Basilan clash to commit suicide.

Aside from Colonel Roberto Caldeo, a sergeant and a lieutenant of the elite unit allegedly also took their own lives years after the three-day assault on Puno (Mt.) Mohaji in Isabela City in late April 2000, according to a Scout Ranger junior officer who was part of the operation.

Caldeo commanded the 1st Scout Ranger Battalion, which was tasked to assault Puno Mohaji to rescue dozens of teachers, students, and a Catholic priest held hostage by the Abu Sayyaf.

Another junior officer in the Rangers who was stationed in Basilan at the time, said the three soldiers could have been driven to suicide because of depression over the assault, in which six soldiers were killed and 50 wounded. More than 20 Abu Sayyaf fighters were also killed.


THE SUICIDE NOTE
Written on a legal sized bond paper were Caldeo's last words: “Patawarin niyo ako sa lahat ng pasakit at kahihiyan na dinulot ko sa inyo. Hirap na hirap na ang kalooban ko at ito na lang ang tanging paraan para matapos ang paghihirap ko. Mahal ko kayong lahat. Paalam. Robert. [Forgive me for all the pain and shame I may have caused you. The pain within me is unbearable and this is the only way I can end my suffering. I love you all. Farewell. Robert]. ”

Investigators explained that a suicide is usually caused by extreme loneliness anchored on unresolved personal problems.

THE BALLISTICS REPORT
A ballistics test showed the spent .45 caliber shell recovered from the scene was fired from the pistol of the same caliber found near Caldeo’s body.

Although tests showed both Caldeo's hands were found negative for gunpowder nitrates or residue, “I don't think it would affect our findings that it was a suicide,” Corpus added.

Curious.


READ THE COMPLETE REPORTS AT:

1
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/metro/view/20080425-132587/Army-colonel-found-dead-with-gunshot-wound-in-head

2
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20080425-132703/Comrades-Caldeo-3rd-vet-of-2000-Basilan-clash-in-suicide

FHM model killed in ’Gapo with 3 others

FHM model killed in ’Gapo with 3 others
Philippine Daily Inquirer, 03/14/2008
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view_article.php?article_id=124609

Four persons, including a model of the men’s magazine FHM, were found dead early yesterday in an Olongapo City apartment that appeared to have been set on fire.

…each of the four victims was found with a bullet wound in the head, and two of them had burning pillows and paper also beside their heads. The latter two were identified as George Vitug Castor Jr., 27, and Von Mark Bandejas, 22.

Judging from the bullet casings recovered at the scene, the killers used 9mm and .45-cal. guns, said Senior Supt. Abelardo Villacorta, the Olongapo police chief.

Villacorta said the bodies of Castor and Bandejas, with hands bound, were found on the living room floor.

The bodies of Castor’s reported live-in partner, Scarlet Garcia, 23, and of Rachel Estacio, 20, were found in the bathroom.

Garcia was an FHM model popularly known as Scarlet Bouffard. She was one of the girls featured in its November 2007 issue.

The hair of Castor and Bandejas had been burned, Villacorta said.

He said a punctured canister of butane, a fuel for lighters, was also found on the floor of the apartment located on the second story of a three-story building.

According to witnesses, the fire started at 3:25 a.m. at Apartment No. 52-B and spread to two more units on the third floor.

Responding firemen and policemen arrived at the scene an hour later.

Witnesses said Castor, Garcia, Bandejas and Estacio had been renting the apartment for over a month.

They were seen and heard drinking and singing in their unit a few hours before the fire broke out.

Villacorta said investigators gathered from a witness that at about 2 a.m., a man was seen transferring items from a Toyota Vios to a blue car parked in front of the victims’ apartment.

The Vios, reportedly owned by Castor, has been taken to the police’s crime laboratory services, also in Olongapo. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon

Neighbors try to overcome trauma from murder of FHM model
By Robert Gonzaga, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 04/24/2008
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/regions/view/20080424-132480/Neighbors-try-to-overcome-trauma-from-murder-of-FHM-model

OLONGAPO CITY, Philippines -- Forty days after the March 13 murder of FHM magazine model Scarlet Garcia and three others, a mass was held at the townhouse where their bodies were found, to "cast away bad spirits."

Afterwards, fireworks went off to drive away "bad spirits" that might haunt what became known as "Scarlet Garcia's townhouse" at Gordon Heights here, owner Luis Ramirez said.

The police arrested two suspects, Ferdinand Carderas and Jay-Ar Perez Mojica, on April 4, in the City of San Fernando where they were also linked to the break-in at the houses of Pampanga board member Raul Macalino and his neighbor and the rape of a 17-year-old girl and a 22-year-old woman in one of the houses.


Murder of FHM model, 3 friends ‘solved,’ says PNP
By Ansbert Joaquin, Tonette Orejas, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 04/14/2008
http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/breakingnews/breakingnews/view_article.php?article_id=130332

Chief Superintendent Errol Pan announced the solution of the case after the Olongapo City police on Monday filed a case for murder with arson against two suspects, who were arrested in related incidents of robbery and rape in the City of San Fernando in Pampanga on April 4.

The two suspects were identified by the Pampanga police as Ferdinand Cadenas and JR Mojico. The Olongapo police, however, identified them as Ferdinand Carderas and Jay-Ar Perez Mojica.

They were implicated in the Olongapo murders after the results of ballistic tests done by the PNP crime laboratory in Camp Crame showed that a bullet and a cartridge used in Olongapo were fired from a gun recovered in the San Fernando cases, Superintendent Daisy Babor, chief of the PNP regional crime laboratory, told reporters on Monday.

The specimens which were subjected to cross-matching were a "9 mm slightly deformed jacketed fired bullet marked MAA-4-08" and a "9 X 29 mm fired cartridge case marked MAA-1-08 to MAA-5-08" found at the crime scene in Garcia's apartment and a "9mm Parabellum V. Bernadelli SRA model P018S pistol with serial number 303240 marked RCS4," said Chief Insp. Ronald Yusi, forensic firearms examiner.

Microscopic examination and comparison of the bullet and cartridge "revealed the same individual characteristics with the test bullets and cartridge cases fired from the 9mm Parabellum," said a part of the two-page report by Superintendent Reynaldo de Guzman, forensic firearms examiner and chief of the PNP national firearms identification division.

Senior Superintendent Liza Sabong, chief of the PNP directorial staff, noted De Guzman's report.

"The specimens really matched," Pan said.

Senior Superintendent Keith Singian, Pampanga police director, said the Parabellum gun was recovered from Cadenas during the arrest. Mojico, who initially identified himself as John Ariel Santos, held a .45 cal. gun.