CASE BREAKTHROUGH Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos on Monday presents to reporters the two former policemen now considered suspects in the murder of Geneva Lopez and her Israeli fiancé Yitshak Cohen. —screengrab from the PNP
MANILA, Philippines — A land dispute was seen as the motive behind the killing of Kapampangan beauty pageant candidate Geneva Lopez and her Israeli fiancé Yitshak Cohen in Tarlac province, the Philippine National Police said on Monday.
In a press conference at Camp Crame led by Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos, Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) Director Maj. Gen. Leo Francisco said one of the suspects, dismissed policeman Michael Angelo Guiang, had committed a parcel of land as collateral to Lopez, who later wanted to get hold of the property. But Guiang supposedly did not want to turn it over to Lopez and instead told her there was already a buyer whom he wanted to introduce to her.
READ: Bodies of missing couple found buried in Tarlac
The couple could no longer be reached by phone or social media hours after they met Guiang at 2 p.m. on June 21.
Guiang had earlier issued a sworn statement confirming his meeting with the couple and saying that he traveled with them to inspect two parcels of land at Armenia village in Tarlac City. The meeting did not take long, according to him.
He and another dismissed policeman, Rommel Abuzo (not Abuza, as earlier reported), were arrested separately on Saturday for illegal possession of firearms. But they were also named persons of interest in connection with the Lopez-Cohen murders.
“According to our investigation, Guiang and Abuzo discussed their plan [to kill] the couple a day before they met them. Guiang did not want to return the piece of land he pawned, but Geneva wanted it back,” Francisco said of the two former policemen now regarded as suspects, as they were presented in the news conference with their faces covered.
Francisco described their alleged plot as “a planned activity.”
“We are collating some more evidence and statements. We believe that their killing was because of this motive,” he said.
Five in custody
Earlier on Monday, PNP chief Gen. Rommel Marbil said in a radio interview that five of seven people who were possibly involved in the double murder were now in police custody.
Besides Guiang and Abuzo, the three others now in custody were also identified by Francisco as suspects.
One of those three, who allegedly served as a driver for the two former policemen, had come forward and told investigators where the couple was buried.
This suspect, whom police have yet to identify, also said he was the one who burned the sport utility vehicle used by Lopez and Cohen.
The vehicle, a silver Nissan Terra, was found ablaze along Cojuangco Road in Cristo Rey village in Capas at 2:36 a.m. on June 22, or about 12 hours after the couple’s relatives could no longer contact the two.
According to a source, this suspect told the police that he was ordered to drive the vehicle and was shocked to see two bodies in the back seat.
Although terrified, he drove the vehicle toward a remote quarry site, where he witnessed how the couple’s bodies were buried in a hurry. He then drove the car to Cojuangco Road, where he set it on fire.
The source said the remaining two suspects in police custody were ordered by Guiang and Abuzo to carry the victims’ bodies to the quarry site and bury them there.
Francisco, in the press conference at Camp Crame, identified one of the five suspects in custody as a certain Jeffrey Santos, a civilian, but did not explain his role in the double murder.
The PNP, according to Francisco, is readying murder charges against all five suspects in its custody—Guiang, Abuzo, Santos, and the two others whom police have yet to identify.