OWWA gives aid to kin of OFW killed in QC bar assault

Abigail Gino Basas
—Definitely Filipino website

The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa) will be awarding more than P200,000 in benefits and aid to the family of the overseas Filipino worker (OFW) who was mauled to death outside a Quezon City bar last week.

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III ordered Owwa to expedite the release of the assistance to the family of Abigail Gino Basas, 28, an Australia-based cruise ship photographer who was assaulted by a group of college students in the early morning of March 4.

Owwa administrator Hans Leo Cacdac said Basas was an active Owwa member at the time of his death and that his family, who resides also in Quezon City, would receive the benefits due them.

The agency is giving P200,000 in insurance benefits, P20,000 in burial aid, a scholarship grant for a Basas sibling below 21 years old, and P15,000 for Basas’ parents since the victim was a bachelor.

Meanwhile, the five women who were part of the group tagged in the fatal mauling have surrendered to the Quezon City Police District (QCPD), all claiming innocence.

The last to surface were two women who on Friday gave more details of the attack on Basas outside Perfect Spot Bar and Billiards on Scout Dr. Lazcano Street.

Speaking to QCPD director Chief Supt. Guillermo Eleazar and members of the media, the two women, who asked that their names be withheld, claimed that several people who were not part of their group also joined in kicking and punching Basas.

“When we got there, we tried to stop them from attacking Gino but there were others who joined in the mauling,” one of them said.

Citing eyewitness accounts and security camera footage, police said Mohammad “Pits” Marzan Piti-Ilan, the primary suspect, led the assault after he and Basas bumped each other at the billiards area.

Piti-Ilan, described as a student of National University in Manila, remains at large.

“Pits went inside the billiards area to pay the bill, and when he called us from the veranda, he told us he was just going to talk to someone,” the woman who surrendered on Friday said.

“When I got there, the attack was already happening. Gino, Pits and another woman was already on the ground,” she recalled, adding that parking assistants tried but failed to stop the attack.