Killers of 3 boys arrested, charged
BALUNGAO–The senseless slaying of three students in Barangay San Raymundo here last October 14 is marked as solved with the arrest and filing of criminal charges against four suspects, one of them a policeman, before the Regional Trial Court in Rosales.
However, police authorities have yet to find the firearms used by the suspects that included an M-16 armalite rifle, an M-14 rifle and a carbine rifle.
The suspects are brothers Eusebio, 44, and Jovito, 39, and Saturnino, all surnamed De Jesus; and SPO2 Loreto Florendo, a member of the Police Anti-Crime Response (PACER) based in Mindanao.
Except for Florendo who was placed under the custody of his senior officer at PACER, all the suspects are now in the custody of the Pangasinan police.
The four were charged with three counts of murder for the slaying of Paul Brian Villapa, Brian Luna, and Mike Sapiil, all 14 years old and students of the Balungao National High School; and attempted murder on Arjay Sobrevilla, 16, who was able to run for cover and was unscathed.
The incident happened at the boundary of Barangays San Raymundo and San Miguel as the four boys were walking home from a wake.
Investigation showed that the killers’ target were not the four boys but Reggie Villapa, Paul Brian’s father, who was reportedly suspected by the De Jesus brothers as being involved in the slaying of their father in Tarlac.
The elder Villapa denied the accusation.
Villapa also told the police that he saw one of the suspects calling somebody on his cellphone during the wake that he and the four boys attended.
The father left ahead of the four boys aboard a motorcycle and said he could have also been shot and killed had he walked with the boys.
The De Jesus brothers were arrested at their respective homes on October 15 and thereafter accompanied by the police to the Philippine National Police Crime Laboratory in Urdaneta for paraffin testing.
Education Secretary Armin Luistro went to the wake on Saturday night while Pangasinan II schools division Superintendent Viraluz Raguindin, in a statement, said: “We condemn this very cruel manslaughter which they (the students) do not deserve!”
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