3rd Dominguez brother tagged in Mendiola slay

Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo

MANILA, Philippines—The younger brother of Roger and Raymond Dominguez is now a suspect in the murder of Alfred Mendiola, the state witness who earlier tagged the two men as the leaders of a carjacking syndicate and helped put them behind bars, Interior Secretary Jesse M. Robredo said Thursday.

Robredo said the empty .45-cal. shell recovered at the crime scene in Dasmariñas City, Cavite province, where the bodies of Mendiola and two other men were found, matched bullets fired from one of the two guns seized from Ryan Dominguez when he was arrested on Tuesday.

This was based on an initial report submitted by the Philippine National Police Crime Laboratory, he added.

Asked if this meant that Ryan and the three other men arrested with him were now suspects in Mendiola’s murder, Robredo answered in the affirmative.

The 20-year-old Dominguez, along with Mark Mario Santos Lacambacal, 21; James Pintacasi Jimenez, 37; and Roy Mabuyo Blanco, 27, was arrested on charges of illegal possession of firearms, explosives and drugs after Bulacan policemen caught them in a compound in Barangay (village) San Agustin, Malolos.

“Ryan and his three arrested cohorts were all found positive for shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride) use. The plastic sachet seized from them was also positive for shabu,” Robredo said.

But he added that fingerprints, blood and hair strands gathered from the crime scene were still in the process of being cross-matched with samples taken from the four men.

Robredo earlier said that Ryan was not arrested because of his suspected involvement in Mendiola’s murder.

He told reporters at Camp Crame that the younger Dominguez likely had a motive to murder Mendiola, who had testified against his brothers, and it was also possible Mendiola still had more to reveal about the car theft ring allegedly run by the older Dominguezes.

“We are not discounting the participation of other people and we are not even saying that all three of them were involved (in Mendiola’s murder),” he said.

However, the “direct link” established between the slug found at the Dasmariñas crime scene and the bullets fired from Ryan’s gun could serve as a basis for the filing of a murder case, Robredo added.

He also said he did not believe that the carjacking group had been neutralized as it was apparent it was still operating to some degree.

Asked if he believed that Roger and Raymond, despite being behind bars, still pulled the strings in their organization, Robredo said this could not be discounted.

“We never removed their rights to visitation. They’re not incommunicado so they must still have ways of issuing orders, which is why their members outside jail must be accounted for,” he told reporters.

Mendiola and two other men identified as Mark Herrera and Eriberto Jumaquio were found dead, bound and gagged in Dasmariñas City on Sunday morning. The three victims had all been shot once in the head with a .45-cal. pistol.

Roger and Raymond, alleged leaders of a car theft syndicate based in Bulacan province, are facing car theft with homicide charges for the killing of car dealers Venson Evangelista and Emerson Lozano in January last year.

In an interview Thursday, lawyer Oliver Lozano, Emerson’s father, said he was confident that the brothers would be convicted despite Mendiola’s death because of the strong evidence against them.

The younger Lozano disappeared with his driver Ernane Sensil while on their way to meet a potential buyer who had expressed interest in a Kia Carnival van the former was selling.

Their charred bodies were later found separately in Central Luzon, leading to the filing of a case against the Dominguez brothers in San Fernando, Pampanga.

The older Lozano earlier asked that the trial be moved to Quezon City as the region is believed to be a stronghold of the carjacking syndicate.

“I want the trial to be done in Quezon City because they were killed there,” he said.—With Julie M. Aurelio