Randy Felix Malayao. PHOTO from KODAO PRODUCTIONS’s Facebook
National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) consultant Randy Malayao may have been killed in a bus in Nueva Vizcaya, but death had apparently been on his tail from the time he boarded the bus in Metro Manila.
Security camera footage released by the Cagayan Valley region police on Wednesday showed that the “persons of interest” behind Malayao’s murder had been tailing him since he boarded the Victory Liner bus to Isabela province at the company’s Kamias terminal on Edsa in Quezon City around 9 p.m. on Jan. 29.
Pictures of bus
One of the persons of interest was shown in the footage approaching the bus and visually checking if Malayao had already boarded, before taking pictures of the bus and walking away.
When the bus made a stopover at a terminal in Aritao, Nueva Vizcaya province, around five hours later, the closed-circuit television camera in the bus again showed two persons of interest near the bus’s entrance.
A few minutes later a gunman boarded the bus, headed to the back and then shot Malayao dead while he slept.
In a statement on Wednesday, Victory Liner Inc. condemned the killing, saying the company was coordinating with police investigators.
“Victory Liner is doing everything possible to further improve the security of our facilities,” said Richard Rivera, spokesperson for the company.
Malayao’s personal effects
Police have yet to identify the suspects in Malayao’s slay, and have courted criticism for painting Malayao as a “ranking leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines-NDFP in Cagayan Valley since 1990s.”
Chief Supt. Jose Mario Espino, Cagayan Valley police director, on Wednesday said criminal complaints might be filed against a former Nueva Vizcaya board member and a lawyer for militant rights group Karapatan for allegedly intimidating the police into releasing Malayao’s laptop and cellphone to his sister.
Malayao’s relatives, who requested anonymity, said they “felt pressured” to give the gadgets back to the police.
“We will cooperate with the investigators, but do not pressure us because we are still grieving,” a relative said. —With a report from Villamor Visaya Jr.