3 UPLB guards held for drugs, rape of 2 women

LOS BAÑOS, Laguna—Three security guards at the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB), who were earlier arrested by policemen in an antidrug operation, turned out to be suspects in the rape of two women, one of them a UPLB student.

Chief Insp. Owen Banaag, Los Baños police chief, said Robert Cañete, Jayve Tayze and Rodrico Landicho were arrested by the police in separate drug busts on Friday and Thursday in this university town in Laguna province.

Banaag, in an interview on Sunday, said police recovered guns and packets of “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride) from the suspects.

He said it was during interrogation that police learned of the involvement of the three men in the rape of two women in April and June.

He said the suspects were hired as security guards at UPLB under Northcom Security Agency. Landicho and Tayze, however, stopped reporting for work sometime in June.

Banaag said the first incident happened at 10 p.m. on April 18 inside the UPLB campus.

The victim, a sophomore student, was on her way home from a school activity when the suspects followed her and held her at knifepoint. The suspects took her to a dimly lit portion of the campus and took turns raping her.

“She was very shocked she could not speak at first,” Banaag said.

On June 14, a 42-year-old canteen cook was on her way to a store in Barangay Maahas at 3:30 p.m. when the suspects forced her into their car at knifepoint.

One of the suspects, later identified as Tayze, raped the victim inside the vehicle. The victim, however, found a chance to jump out of the car and escape when a second suspect was about to rape her.

Banaag said both women identified the three men from a police lineup on Saturday. The suspects also owned up the crime, he said.

UPLB officials had yet to issue an official statement on the matter on Sunday.

“We are still looking into a possibility of more victims [coming out],” Banaag said. Maricar Cinco, Inquirer Southern Luzon