MANILA, Philippines—Accompanied by her mother and a barangay official, an 8-year-old girl turned up at the Manila Police District headquarters on Thursday to claim she too could have been raped and killed had she gone with her 7-year-old best friend on the day she was raped and killed.
The child’s two confessed rapists—Roderick Soliveres, 28, and Cecilio Bacolo Jr, 19—were killed Tuesday night when one of them allegedly tried to grab the gun of a night-duty policeman at the MPD homicide section where they had been detained since early Saturday.
The 8-year-old girl, a Grade 2 pupil and neighbor of the rape-slay victim in Paco, told the Inquirer that her best friend had asked her last Friday morning to accompany her to buy bread at a nearby store.
“I was playing that morning when Nica asked me to come along to buy some bread. She had P20 with her and when we got to the street corner, Jun-Jun (Bacolo) and Mulong (Soliveres) were there,” the girl told the Inquirer.
“Jun-Jun told me to come with him and Nica. When Nica and I got on the black pedicab, I felt hungry so I told Nica, ‘Nica wait for me. I need to go home and eat first,’ I got off and when I returned, they were gone so I just went back home,” she added.
The next day, the girl told the Inquirer, she heard that her best friend had been raped then killed and that two men who had asked her to go with them had been arrested for it.
Nica’s body was found at around 11 p.m. Friday inside a rented room on the fourth floor of a house on Pat Antonio Street in Sta. Mesa.
Soliveres and Bacolo were arrested early Saturday after a witness identified them as the last persons seen with the victim. Both men subsequently admitted to raping and then strangling the girl.
On Tuesday night, at around 10 p.m. homicide personnel directed the two inmates to empty a pail used as a urinal inside the holding cell. While SPO1 Ramil Dimagiba was escorting Soliveres to the toilet to dispose of the urine, the two men carrying the pail allegedly dropped the container and grabbed the officer’s gun.
As they were grappling for possession, police said, the weapon went off with the bullet finding Bacolo’s chest. Soliveres was still wrestling with Dimagiba for possession of the gun when he was shot by PO3 Rodel Benitez. Both detainees were taken to the Philippine General Hospital where they were declared dead on arrival.
The National Police Commission has begun an investigation to determine if an administrative charge of negligence could be brought against the two policemen.