PhilRice exec found dead in car in Nueva Ecija

SAN PEDRO CITY, Laguna, Philippines — A division head of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) was found dead in his car in Talavera, Nueva Ecija on Tuesday.

Roger Barroga, head of PhilRice Information System Division, was found dead around 9:30 a.m. in his car, which was parked in Barangay La Torre in Talavera, according to Col. Leon Victor Rosete, chief of the Nueva Ecija Police Provincial Office.

“A co-worker found him [at the backseat] of his [car],” Rosete said on Tuesday evening.

Barroga, who was in his 50s, led the information technology tasks of PhilRice, from its main headquarters in Muñoz, Nueva Ecija.

He was the brother of Serlie Jamias, vice chancellor for community affairs of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB).

‘No foul play’

PhilRice is an attached corporation of the Department of Agriculture, with a branch in Los Baños, Laguna.

“There were no signs of [him] struggling,” Rosete said in a phone interview. He said this meant police not find any physical marks or wounds on the victim.

Nevertheless, Rosete said Barroga’s remains would be investigated by the Scene of the Crime Operation as requested by his family.

A colleague of Barroga’s, who declined to be named in this report, said his family and co-workers last contacted him “between 3 and 4 p.m.” on Monday.

Barroga, a UPLB alumnus and former PhilRice deputy executive director for administration, managed PhilRice’s FutureRice program, a 5-hectare farm in Nueva Ecija that served as a testbed for PhilRice’s IT programs.

In 2018, he was also one of the recipients of the Civil Service Commission’s Pagasa Awards.

/atm