Before arrest, fugitive able to take police station selfie

Radden Canasa Argomido’s Facebook post

A fugitive who appeared to have taunted authorities with a selfie posted on social media was arrested on Tuesday, the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) said.

In December, Raddel Argomido posted on Facebook a selfie he took at a police station, with two officers in the background who were unaware at the time that he was convicted of rape in November 2016.

The NCRPO on Thursday announced that the 36-year-old Argomido was arrested in San Pedro, Laguna province.

On top of his rape conviction, Argomido is facing charges of frustrated murder after he allegedly stabbed the 66-year-old father of his rape victim in a chance encounter on Jan. 1 this year, a week after he posted his selfie on social media.

NCRPO director, Chief Supt. Guillermo Eleazar, said Argomido managed to elude arrest after being convicted in a 2013 rape case and sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison by a Los Baños court.

The selfie he took at the police station, which showed a smiling Argomido, “appeared to be a challenge to the police” for them to intensify the manhunt for the convict, Eleazar said.

When presented in a media briefing on Thursday, a handcuffed, stoic-looking Argomido was confronted by the rape victim and her father, who managed to get near him and give him a slap in the face and a punch in the stomach before the officers could restrain them.

“(The selfie) made us wonder if he was bragging that he had protectors in the police, that’s why he had the gall to post it,” the father, who spent a month in the hospital after being stabbed 15 times, told the Inquirer.