Nearly three weeks after three security personnel guarding the house of Banco Filipino owner Albert “Bobby” Aguirre were gunned down by a group of men, a motorcycle left behind at the crime scene finally helped the police track down some of the perpetrators.
At the same time, the police said that the March 7 incident was a case of a robbery gone wrong. The suspects, however, panicked and fled without taking anything after they shot the victims since the initial plan had been not to harm anyone inside the house.
On Thursday, four men linked to the deaths of David Manguera, retired policeman Melvin Padaca and PO3 Luisito Macatunao were presented to media at the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) headquarters in Camp Bagong Diwa, Bicutan, Taguig City.
They were Edgar Allan Peñafuente, John Mitz Jose, Gerald Reyes and a minor whose name was withheld.
The four have been charged with three counts of murder. Peñafuerte also faces charges of illegal possession of firearms and illegal possession of drugs since he yielded a .38-calibre revolver and an undetermined quantity of “shabu” or methamphetamine hydrochloride upon his arrest. The police are still looking for 11 other suspects.
According to Las Piñas police chief Senior Supt. Romulo Sapitula, they managed to track down the suspects through the motorcycle which was left behind at Aguirre’s sprawling 1,000-sq m estate at BF International Subdivision in Barangay CAA on March 7.
“We invited John Mitz Jose, the owner of the motorcycle, for questioning. While he initially stated that his motorcycle was stolen on the night of the crime, he later on made an extrajudicial confession admitting participation in the incident,” Sapitula said.
Interestingly enough, as the police were holding Jose, another police team arrested Peñafuerte on April 12, but for a different offense. “One of our mobile patrol teams [had] flagged down Peñafuerte for riding on a motorcycle without a helmet and a plate number … when they saw a gun tucked [into the waistband of his pants,” Sapitula said.
“When they brought him to the police [station] for questioning, Jose, apparently surprised, pointed to Peñafuerte as the man who had recruited him and helped plan the incident,” he added.
The minor was picked up next based on information gathered from the suspects while Reyes gave himself up to the Parañaque police when he felt that they were hot on his trail.
“According to the confessions two of them made, the plan was to tie up the people in the house and force them to open a vault. There was no plan to kill anyone but when they sensed the guards were armed, they were forced to shoot them,” Sapitula said. He added that the suspects did not know who Aguirre was and just targeted his house because it was big.