The widow of businessman-politician Renerio “Gogong” Arogante yesterday sought help from President Gloria Arroyo in resolving the murder of her husband last March 9 in Daanbantayan.
Julieta Arogante handed her letter to Arroyo but refused to divulge its contents to the media, saying they were confidential. She said that she has been hoping that the president would help her obtain justice for the killing of her husband.
“I may be forgetful of names but I cannot forget the face of my husband’s murderer,” Julieta told reporters. Gogong was gunned down while talking to her wife and son Renerio IV outside a commercial complex that their family owned in Daanbantayan.
More than two months after the killing, a soldier was arrested in Mandaue City as the suspected killer of Gogong. He is 33-year-old Sgt. Moises Ludoc of the 11th Infantry Battalion of the Armed Forces of the Philippines based in Negros Oriental.
Ludoc, also a resident of barangay Bateria in Daanbantayan, had just gotten off a passenger bus from the town when arrested by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation. He was with his wife and two children but did not resist when the NBI took him in custody, and seized his .38 caliber revolver.At the NBI office, Juliet and Renerio IV positively identified Ludoc as the assailant who shot Gogong five times. Other witnesses gathered at the NBI also identified him positively.
Ludoc, inside his detention cell, however denied the allegations insisting that he had been away from home since January and just returned only that Monday, days before his arrest. Ludoc said he finished last December his advance studies at the AFP Central Command in barangay Apas, Cebu City then reported back to the 11th IB in Negros last January. He said his commanding officer, 1st Lt. Manuel Mendoza, could prove that he was in Negros at the time Gogong was slain. Maintaining that he never knew Gogong, Ludoc has been in active service with the AFP for 12 years and was previously assigned in Jolo and Basilan. At the time of his arrest, he said that he brought with him his family in coming to Cebu to transact something at the Pag-Ibig office and to go around the city later in the day.
Based on information gathered by the NBI, Ludoc went to another place after the shooting incident on March 9 and only recently returned to Daanbantayan.
Even with the arrest of Ludoc, the NBI is not considering the case closed. “We haven’t identified the mastermind and other personalities possibly involved in the killing,” said NBI agent Hermie Monsanto. —Jasmin R. Uy/RAE