2 decomposing bodies found in Mt. Makiling trail

[wpgmappity id=”859″]

SAN PEDRO, Laguna—The decomposing bodies of two men, believed to be in their early twenties, were found along the hiking trail of Mt. Makiling inside the campus of the University of the Philippines in Los Banos (UPLB) on Thursday.

Dr. Enrique Tolentino, the UPLB Vice Chancellor for Community Affairs, said in a text message, the two corpses were found near Flatrocks but the university had no information yet about their identities, as of Thursday.

Flatrocks, named as such because of a large but flat rock boulders, is a portion of the Makiling hiking trail, past the UPLB College of Forestry.

Batong Malake village councilman Janos Lapiz said by phone that a group of residents who were supposed to swim in a stream nearby were the ones who found the bodies at around 4 p.m.

“They said they were preparing to swim when they smelled something rotting,” Lapiz said.

One was wearing long pants while the other was in a pair of shorts. Both of them had no shirts on.

Lapiz said the bodies were already at a decomposing stage making it hard for university authorities and the local police to identify them.

He said authorities found no obvious signs of how the two had died, “but someone from the SOCO [Scene of the Crime Operatives] team said the bodies bore bruises on the legs, similar to those you get from undergoing a (fraternity) hazing rites. But it’s really hard to say right now if they were hazing victims.”