Revenge, drugs eyed in Taptap "salvage victims"

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City Police Office director Melvin Ramon Buenafe claimed to have leads already who are the people behind the gruesome killings of two people whose bodies were dumped in the mountain during the Holy Week.

Buenafe told reporters yesterday that the motives behind the murders of Glenn Parawan, 32, and his 17-year-old cousin Manuel Edgardo Parawan III last Thursday were both drug related and revenge.

Buenafe said that the cousin of the victims, Cloyd Arias, 31, resident of Barangay Maslog Danao City, told them that his cousins were just victims of revenge from the group of Waldemar Pacis whom he also shot dead in Barangay Sambag II Thursday morning.

Arias confessed to the police that he killed Pacis during their argument because the latter failed to purchase P5,000 worth of shabu as what he told him.

Arias believes his enemy’s cohorts retaliated by killing his two cousins.

“Naa daw koy kuyog duha. Naalaan lang nila akong mga ig-agaw. Mga inosente to. Gi-damay-damay lang nila ang way labot,” Arias said.

He said he has at least three persons in mind, who, he believed to have killed his cousins. Arias said he already gave their names to the police.

Buenafe said the victim would have wanted to visit Arias to bring him food. The two went to the Fuente Police Station believing that their cousin was there. When the two did not find their cousin at Fuente, they left supposedly to look for him but were later found dead in Barangay Taptap.

The two sustained hack wounds in their faces, their hands and necks were tied with packaging tapes and their bodies were stashed in sacks.