Mindanao State University’s Marawi campus was carved out from a barren military reservation 50 years ago. RYAN D. ROSAURO/INQUIRER MINDANAO
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines—The October 25 case of arson and murder on the campus of the state-run Mindanao State University in Marawi City, in which two people were killed, could have been an offshoot of the locals’ dislike of videoke, the police said Monday.
But Lanao del Sur police chief Senior Superintendent Romeo Magsalos said the authorities were still at a loss as who was responsible for the crime.
Magsalos told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in a telephone interview that contrary to earlier suspicions, the fire in the building where MSU professor Othello Cobal operated a videoke and an Internet café was not a crime of passion or a case of robbery.
Cobal and his aide, Erwin Diaz, 22, were killed in the fire while Diaz’s 13-year-old sister, whose name the police is withholding, survived. Investigation showed that both Cobal and Diaz had their hands tied behind their backs, leading the police to believe initially that the arson and killings were a case of robbery or crime of passion.
“Initially, we pursued many angles, to include cybersex and business rivalry. Now we are pursuing the angle of karaoke operation. My apologies, but I cannot fully explain well why Marawi folks object to karaoke operation,” Magsalos said.
He said days before the incident, Cobal received threats from unidentified people concerning his videoke operation but he just ignored them.
Magsalos said the police were trying to find witnesses who may be able to identify the perpetrators.
“According to initial investigation, the perpetrators did not even cover their faces,” he said.
Magsalos said the Lanao del Sur police also tapped the help of the Iligan police’s Scene of Crime Operatives (Soco) to gather more evidence from the gutted building.
The additional evidence, he said, could help the police determine what was used to set the building on fire and provide clues to who the perpetrators were.