NBI looks at love angle in ex-reporter Magsino murder

All angles

The Philippine National Police is considering all angles.

“Whether it is connected with her past work as a member of the media, her present work, or personal reasons and her present relationships, we are all looking into that,” PNP spokesman Chief Supt. Generoso Cerbo Jr. said in a press briefing in Camp Crame on Tuesday.

A special investigation task group composed of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group and the Batangas police has been formed to investigate Magsino’s death.

Supt. Manuel Castillo, Batangas City police chief, said Magsino’s activities on Facebook might provide the police with leads.

Investigators were also looking for two more persons, a female and a male, against whom Magsino had filed a complaint. The names of the two were withheld.

According to Castillo, Magsino on March 19 filed a report in the city police station against the two persons, who reportedly owed her some P81,000. The blotter revealed that the woman had refused to pay Magsino and had gone instead to Magsino’s house with a male companion, who carried a gun.

“We’re still looking for them (for questioning),”Castillo said.

The police are having a hard time identifying people who may have wanted to harm Magsino. “She just had too many enemies, even politicians in Bauan (town) and Batangas City,” the police investigator said.

Magsino, who earned a reputation as a hard-hitting and feisty reporter in Batangas, exposed corruption and other illegal activities that involved government officials. After her stint in print media, she created public groups on Facebook that became her platform to air her criticisms.

“Taga-Bauan, Batangas, Ka Kung … (You are from Bauan, Batangas, if …),” which has 12,683 members, served as a forum that openly discussed corruption and violence in Bauan, while “Barako Batangas,” with 26,128 members, discussed issues all over the province. (Barako connotes manliness as it broadly refers to a male animal kept for breeding. But it has references to the coffee known as kapeng barako, a strong coffee that has become synonymous with Batangas province).

FB messages

Asked where the investigation was leading, Castillo said: “I think the one in Facebook,” adding that the police were not ruling out other angles.

Magsino’s public posts on the days leading to her killing interested the police. In some of her most recent posts, Magsino said she was receiving obscene messages and photos from a municipal councilor of Bauan.

The messages reportedly came from Facebook accounts under the names Kelvin Gimeno, Panganiban Jeff and Paradise Andrew.

In a phone interview on Tuesday, Gimeno, a councilor of Bauan, said he was surprised and “bothered” that he was being dragged into Magsino’s killing. Gimeno said the police questioned him on Tuesday morning in relation to the incident.

“I never knew who she was. I was busy teaching (a summer music class) these past days and all of a sudden I was told that someone was killed and that I’m being dragged into it,” he said. Gimeno also denied owning the Facebook accounts mentioned in Magsino’s posts.

‘We ignored her’

Bauan Mayor Ryanh Dolor said he was not surprised that his name came up in the investigation. Hours before Magsino was killed, she posted a Facebook message that apparently criticized the Dolors.

“Perhaps because we’re the new ones (being targeted), but she also criticized others,” Dolor said, alluding to those with a motive to kill Magsino.

He said he, too, never met Magsino in person but heard about her “tirades” online. “We just simply ignored her,” he said.–With reports from Jerry E. Esplanada, Niña P. Calleja and Julie M. Aurelio

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