CAMP PACIANO RIZAL, Laguna—A 19-year-old student of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) was stabbed dead Sunday, causing fear and rage in the UPLB community as it happened less than a week after a high school student was raped and murdered in the same vicinity.
The killing of Ray Bernard Peñaranda, a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture student, coming in the heels of the rape-slay of Rochel Geronda, a student of the Los Baños National High School, prompted the relief of the town’s police chief and of the entire municipal police station, Laguna police director Senior Superintendent Gilbert Cruz said by phone on Sunday.
Police revamp
Los Baños police chief Supt. Dante Novicio would be transferred to the provincial police office in Sta Cruz town, while the rest of the police officers would be reassigned to other police stations in Laguna to undergo training effective Monday, Cruz said.
He said Chief Inspector Conrado Masungsong, a former intelligence officer in the provincial police office, would take over Novicio’s post.
“Los Baños will be temporarily under the provincial police command,” Cruz said.
Peñaranda, of Tanay in Rizal, was stabbed in the right chest by robbers at the vicinity of Barangay (village) Batong Malake at around 1:30 a.m. Sunday and was pronounced dead upon arrival at the Los Baños Doctors Hospital.
It was in the same village that barely a week ago, on Feb. 27, the body of 14-year-old Rochel Geronda was found, a victim of apparent rape.
Five months earlier, Given Grace Cebanico, 19, a third year computer science student of UPLB, was also raped and murdered, her body found along IBP Road in Barangay Tuntungin-Putho, on Oct. 11, 2011.
Cebanico’s murder prompted a university-wide campaign to seek justice and tighter security inside and outside the campus.
Peñaranda, who was with two other male UPLB students, had come from a dance rehearsal and was on his way home to a rented apartment when attacked by two unidentified suspects aboard a motorcycle along F.O. Santos Street in Barangay Batong Malake, according to Novicio, who was interviewed earlier Sunday before his relief was announced by Cruz.
He said Peñaranda’s companions told the police that it was the motorcycle’s back rider who punched and stabbed the victim with a knife after announcing a hold-up.
Peñaranda’s companions described the suspects as full-bodied but failed to give a detailed description after the students ran away and sought help.
The suspects immediately fled after the incident.
“We are still investigating if the suspects’ motive was really to rob the students. Nothing was taken from the victim,” Novicio said.
Novicio said the most recent incident prompted officials from the UPLB, the local government and the police to move to an earlier date this week a security summit originally scheduled for March 24.
Geronda, a student of the Los Baños National High School (not Batong Malake National High School as earlier reported by the police), was raped and murdered also in Batong Malake.
Geronda was last seen around 8 p.m. on February 27 when she left their home in Riverside Subdivision to go to a computer shop.
Police investigation revealed that Geronda never arrived at the computer shop. Her half-naked body was found the following morning in a banana plantation in the same village.
Novicio said a number of people, including the caretaker of the property where Geronda’s body was recovered and the owner of the house closest to the site, had undergone swab tests with the police.
The provincial and local government also put up a P100,000 reward for any information that may lead police to the suspects in the Geronda rape-slay case.