MANILA, Philippines—A Filipino-Canadian and his Slovenian live-in partner, both film critics and fans of Philippine independent films, were shot dead on Tuesday night by robbers a new housemaid had helped get into his house in Quezon City.

Police identified the victims as Fil-Canadian Alexis Tioseco, 29, and Nika Bohinc, 30.

Both died on the spot, said Chief Inspector Benjamin Elenzano, head of the homicide investigation unit of the Quezon City Police District (QCPD).

The pair just arrived in the house at 39 Times St. in Barangay (village) West Triangle when they were gunned down by three armed men they caught in the act of looting their things at around 10:30 p.m., police said.

Police said the robbers were in cahoots with the victims’ maid identified as Criselda Gesman Dayag, 45, who is from Zamboanga del Sur province.

“It was Criselda who brought the armed men to the house and also helped them in their escape using the couple’s vehicle,” police said.

Investigation showed that the maid was hired by the couple in March.

Police clearance

Elenzano said the QCPD was able to trace the maid’s identity through a police file about her application for a clearance.

“We were told by the other maid (Magdalena Patpat) that before she was hired by the couple, they had asked her to produce a police clearance,” Elenzano said.

He said his men were still verifying whether the information Dayag had provided in the application was correct.

Patpat, the couple’s maid of three years, told police she was watching television when Dayag asked for permission to go out to buy something.

Accompanied by armed men

When Dayag returned, she was accompanied by three armed men who immediately tied, gagged and locked her inside the maid’s quarters.

It was at this point that the couple arrived and a commotion followed, during which, she heard shots fired, Patpat told police.

Elenzano said the robbers fled using the couple’s Ford Lynx (CPW-329). The vehicle was found abandoned on West Avenue in the barangay that same night.

Editor of online journal

Tioseco was a faculty member at the Arts Department of the University of Asia and the Pacific, and editor in chief of Criticine, an online journal of Southeast Asian cinema, data found on the Internet show.

Bohinc was a freelance film journalist and programmer who worked as a European content provider for SEA Images, a webpage focusing on film collaborations between Europe and Asia and founded by the Asian European Foundation.

“The more films I saw, specifically local independent films, the more I wanted to see. The deeper I got, the more responsibility I felt, the stronger the need to do something, to share that which I found beautiful,” Tioseco said in an article in the monthly magazine Rogue.

In the article, he talked about how his interest in Philippine films had developed.

“One thing has slowly progressed into another and, what began as a simple curiosity pursued with sincerity, has evolved into a commitment,” Tioseco said.

Pay back

He added that Philippine cinema had given him so much that “one must pay back one’s debts.”

In the Rogue article, Tioseco’s letter to Bohinc spoke about their desire to live in the country, which they said they had learned to love.

Kiri Dalena, a friend of Tioseco’s, said the film critic’s passion for Philippine cinema had been instrumental in bringing local films to the international scene.

“As film critic he introduced the Filipino films in festivals and conferences and other international critics, and raised their awareness about Filipino films,” Dalena said.

Dalena also said that Tioseco had pushed for local films so that Filipinos would appreciate them.

“He was pushing for the local films to be seen on the international scene but would also want for more for the Filipinos to be able to watch them,” she said.