An airport policeman and the owner of the house that served as a safehouse for the 8-year-old son of a food company executive from Burma (Myanmar) whom they had kidnapped were arrested by the National Bureau of Investigation in separate operations recently.
Nonnatus Rojas, NBI director, named two of the five suspects who kidnapped the boy in Cavite in June last year as PO2 Rosendo Jaspe and Jerry Bandojo of Taytay, Rizal.
The boy was later rescued by NBI agents following a tip from an anonymous caller.
Rojas said the two were arrested by the NBI Counter Terrorism Division led by head agent Raoul Manguerra after almost two months of surveillance operations.
The suspects were identified by several witnesses who saw the boy taken from a bus on its way to school in Biñan, Laguna, with 13 other children as passengers.
Jaspe was nabbed on Jan. 3 at the old domestic airport in Pasay City, while Bandojo was arrested on Thursday at a garage in Barangay Damayan in Taytay.
Manguerra did not name the three other suspects who remain at large as he said this could derail the manhunt against them, although they have already been identified.
He added that kidnap-for-ransom charges had already been filed against the suspects, and no bail was recommended.
Jaspe was allegedly the driver of the car that brought the boy to the group’s safe house in Antipolo City.
Bandojo, on the other hand, was implicated in the crime since he owns the house where the boy was kept. The kidnappers allegedly demanded a P20-million ransom from the boy’s parents for his release.