PNP detains police officer who confessed in 2024 killing of colleague

Handcuffed man. STOCK PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — The police lieutenant colonel who confessed to killing a police master executive sergeant (PEMS) last November was arrested by authorities, according to the Philippine National Police Integrity Monitoring and Enforcement Group (PNP IMEG).

The lieutenant colonel had been held in restrictive custody at the National Capital Region Police Office Regional Headquarters Support Unit (NCRPO RHSU) since last December, after admitting to the killing.

“At about 2:18 p.m. on June 24, 2025, joint elements of the PNP served the warrant of arrest at the custodial facility of [the NCRPO RHSU] for the crime of murder against P/Lt. Col. Roderick Tawanna Pascua,” the PNP IMEG said in a police report released to the media on Wednesday.

Pascua is accused of fatally shooting PEMS Emmanuel De Asis after supposedly discovering him in “intimate relations” with the lieutenant colonel’s wife in their apartment at the Married Non-Officers’ Quarters in Camp Bagong Diwa last November 28, 2024.

According to a spot report from the Taguig police, the suspect allegedly dismembered the body using a hacksaw and brought the remains to bury it in the grounds of his ancestral home in Baguio City.

READ: Senior police officer admits to killing sergeant inside NCRPO HQ

IMEG added that the arrest warrant did not recommend bail and was issued by the Regional Trial Court Branch 271 in Taguig City last May 19.

Pascua will be held at the IMEG’s custodial facility in its headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City before turning him over to the Taguig court, the PNP explained. /jpv