DAGUPAN CITY—Police are looking for three teenagers who are suspected of involvement in the murder last week of a high school student at the campus of the Dagupan City National High School (DCNHS) here.
Superintendent Romeo Caramat, city police chief, said witnesses saw three teenage boys fleeing from the place where Madelaine Faith Goyena, 14, was killed on June 1.
Caramat said police have detained Dennis Escaño, 18, who was arrested nine hours after Goyena’s bloodied body was found on the DCNHS campus. Goyena had 17 stab wounds and her face was smashed believed to be with a rock.
“I think we got the right suspect,” Caramat said.
On Thursday, Goyena was buried at the Eternal Memorial Gardens here with 2,000 students, teachers and friends joining the funeral march. The students wore white shirts and pink armbands and carried streamers calling for justice for Goyena’s killing.
Mayor Benjamin Lim, who spoke during the funeral Mass, denounced the killing and called on people who may have witnessed the crime to come out.
Goyena’s body was found past 2 p.m. on June 1, while the campus was busy on the last day of the Brigada Eskwela, an activity involving the cleanup of schools by parents, teachers and students before the opening of classes.
The involvement of minors in major crimes has drawn the attention of legislators who filed a bill seeking to lower the age limit for filing of criminal cases against crime suspects.
Authorities have said some crime groups use children in their operations since children, under the law, are exempt from criminal prosecution.
Children involved in crimes are usually simply taken into custody by the Department of Social Welfare and Development while their parents or crime handlers are spared from criminal liability.
In some jails, however, minor offenders are mixed with adult crime suspects. Gabriel Cardinoza, Inquirer Northern Luzon