TAGUM CITY, Davao del Norte, Philippines – The National Bureau of Investigation in southern Mindanao has recommended the filing of murder and child abuse charges against four security guards of the city government in connection with the abduction, torture and murder of two teenaged boys last February.
Facing charges before the Tagum City prosecutor’s office are four members of the local government’s Security Management Office (SMO) and two others, according to lawyer-accountant Dante Gierran, NBI Southeastern Mindanao officer-in-charge.
Charged were Joseph Albios, 34; Reynaldo Jimenez, 41; Jaime Abcede, 54; and Armando Senina, 54, all working under the office of Mayor Allan Rellon, for the deaths of Francis Charles Hillach and Jio Mark Arengay.
The charges were filed before the CPO last April 24.
Based on the results of an investigation conducted by the bureau, a copy of which was obtained by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the alleged crimes were committed in a span of hours from the night of Jan. 31 to the early hours of the following day.
Gierran said witnesses pointed to the suspects as the ones who forcibly took the victims inside the comfort room of the Tagum City Freedom Center along Arellano Street in Magugpo Poblacion, physically abusing them before forcing them into a white Strada pickup and bringing them to a banana plantation in Pantukan town where their bodies were found by residents a day after.
Hillach was 15 while Arengay was 17.
The suspects allegedly used city-owned vehicles in carrying out the kidnapping and murder.
The NBI regional chief said the killings appeared to be a state-sponsored killing, “the first time in over a decade in Region XI (which) was successfully investigated and recommended for prosecution by the bureau.”
Families of the victims had sought the help of the NBI after the alleged inaction by the police following the boys’ disappearance even as the kidnapping happened less than 50 meters from the Tagum City police station.
Mayor Allan Rellon acknowledged the four suspects as city hall employees under the executive office.
In a letter to Gierran last March 3, a copy of which was obtained by the Inquirer, Rellon said he was “bewildered by the suggestion that our Security Management Office staff were implicated in these summary killings by the fact that there is no record of such incident in our police blotter…”
“As a local chief executive, I abhor any form of summary killing,” said the mayor.
The NBI investigation revealed the victims were with most of the witnesses loitering at the Freedom Park on the night of Jan. 31 when four armed men in civilian clothes accosted them at the public comfort room of the park, just 50 meters from the Tagum City police station and began beating them. The victims were then forced into a white Strada pickup, which sped off towards the direction of the national road and Pantukan, in Compostela Valley.
Records from the city government reveal the LGU indeed owns a white Mitsubishi Strada pickup bearing plate number SHE-835. The vehicle is officially issued to the SMO which is being headed by Rellon’s older brother Elmer, a retired policeman.
The four suspects were positively identified by witnesses based on photographs appearing on the File 201 of all employees under the city’s SMO.
The slain teenagers were allegedly involved in theft and other petty crimes in the city. They were among the more than 20 girls and boys, all minors, “rescued” by police and social workers in a supposed abandoned house in Cristo Rey, Magugpo West village last Jan. 23.
The house turned out to be owned by the family of the slain Hillach and the group was there to celebrate his birthday.
“The minors were brought to the city social welfare and development office and later endorsed to the (police) Women’s and Children’s Protection Desk for documentation, their mugshots taken. They were released later that day,” the NBI report said, adding also present during the raid was the mayor himself and Nora Lupiba, the city social worker chief.
“Since then the minors were subjected to surveillance by armed men in civilian clothes who were allegedly with (Rellon) during the raid/rescue operation,” the NBI report said.
Gierran said his office sent subpoenas to the subjects to surrender their officially issued firearms for ballistic examination and comparison with the recovered empty shells from the crime scene, “but they refused citing advice of the city legal officer.”
In text messages to Inquirer on Monday, Rellon said the four SMO personnel were still waiting for subpoena from the city fiscal’s office “so they can have their counter-affifdavits.”
“The truth will set them free,” Rellon said, without elaborating.