CEBU CITY — Sixteen-year-old Christine Silawan can now be buried.
Her parents have decided to bury her on Sunday now that her assailant has been arrested and charged.
The decision was in keeping with their promise not to bury their daughter until a suspect or suspects in her brutal killing have been arrested.
On Monday, the National Bureau of Investigation in Central Visayas (NBI-7) filed a murder charge against a 17-year-old Grade 8 student for killing Silawan whose face was skinned and organs in the neck removed.
The suspect was arrested at his home in Barangay Maribago, Lapu-Lapu City, on Saturday night after he was identified as the one seen with Silawan before she was killed in the evening of March 10.
Brutality
Silawan was found the next day dead with half her face gone, her organs in the neck removed and bearing 30 stab wounds.
Contrary to earlier reports, the suspect didn’t sign an extrajudicial confession but instead opted to keep silent.
Mario Pardillo and his common-law wife, Lourdes, wanted to bury their daughter at the public cemetery in Barangay Mactan, Lapu-Lapu, on Sunday after they were convinced that the NBI got the right suspect.
They said security footage and text messages between the suspect and their daughter convinced them that the boy killed her.
The footage showed the suspect walking with Silawan to Barangay Bangkal where the body of the girl was later found.
It also captured what appeared to be a fight between the two.
Jealousy
The NBI believed that intense jealousy pushed the suspect to kill Silawan, his girlfriend for more than a year.
It was also the cause of a fight between the two based on text messages retrieved by the NBI.
“I don’t know him. We didn’t know that our daughter had a boyfriend,” Lourdes said. But she said she was convinced that the boy was the suspect.
She said she met the suspect at the filing of the complaint at the Lapu-Lapu City prosecutor’s office but he didn’t say anything.
Lourdes said she believed that the suspect didn’t act alone.
The mother of the suspect, however, said she believed that her son was innocent.
In a radio interview on Tuesday, she said her son was playing basketball at the time Silawan was killed.
She added that she knew her son was not capable of committing such a crime.