Driver killed as robbers hijack cargo of soap, shampoo and detergent

MANILA, Philippines—Hijackers killed a truck driver and badly wounded his helper Friday after taking their cargo of bath soap, shampoo and detergent worth P800,000, police said.

The robbers bound and gagged with packaging tape Henry Baraquias, driver of the ARO Logistics Inc. based in Cabuyao, Laguna, before stabbing him to death and leaving his body on the driver’s seat of his  six-wheel truck (TXP-593), which was found early Friday in Tondo, Manila.

Baraquias’  co-worker, Bryan Eduarde, 29, survived multiple stab wounds and remains confined at the Tondo Medical Center.

The robbers transferred the cargo from the ARO truck to a different vehicle before fleeing and are the objects of a police hunt.

Police Officer 3 Efren Flores  of the Manila Police District homicide section said that the hijacking apparently started at around 3:30 a.m. Friday when the ARO Logistics base in Laguna lost track of Baraquias’ vehicle, using a global positioning system (GPS), somewhere in Taguig City.

Flores said that the company’s operations officer, John Paul Jalindogan, dispatched  the truck for the delivery of the toiletries to Metro Manila at 3 a.m. but when the truck reached Taguig City half an hour later, the Laguna base lost contact with the vehicle’s GPS.

The missing truck, the case investigator pointed out, turned up at around 4:05 a.m. on Honorio Lopez Boulevard in Gagalangin, Tondo. It was parked in front of the Immaculate Conception Academy along with three ten-wheel trucks.

Leonel Waste Management Corp. employee William Arenas and his co-workers were picking up garbage along Honorio Lopez Boulevard when he saw the badly wounded Eduarde come out of one of the parked trucks and frantically wave at them for help.

The garbage collectors got off their vehicle to help out Eduarde and discovered Baraquias’ body on the driver’s seat of the ARO Logistics truck, with a bloodied blanket covering him.

Arenas and his co-workers immediately brought the wounded truck helper to the nearest hospital and sought police assistance.  Baraquias’ body was brought to the St. Yvan funeral parlor.

Flores said that Baraquias bore two stab wounds in the chest and in the right side of the body and had been gagged with packaging tape wound around his head and had his hands bound.

He said that Eduarde, who was in critical condition at the Tondo Medical Center, still had to give police a statement.