NPD launches fresh probe of radio host's murder

MANILA, Philippines - The Northern Police District (NPD) launched a renewed investigation into the murder of a woman radio broadcaster in Malabon City five months ago after the victim’s kin complained that her killers roam freely in their area, an official said yesterday.

NPD intelligence chief Superintendent Remus Medina was tasked last week by district director Chief Superintendent Antonio Decano to lead a fresh probe in the killing of Marlina “Len” Sumera, host of a public service program on radio station dzME.

“We will be digging deeper into the case,” Medina told The STAR yesterday.

Medina appealed for other witnesses “to cooperate with the police” claiming that since Sumera was killed in a residential area and in broad daylight, several residents could have seen her killers.

Sumera’s husband, John, said they only have one “reliable” witness in his wife’s murder but claimed that they have already identified the “triggerman,” who is often seen in the lair of suspected contract killers in the middle of a shantytown in Barangay Catmon.

John said most of the suspects are still in Malabon City but the local police have yet to arrest them.

It has been five months since Mayor Canuto Oreta, Rep. Jaye Lacson-Noel and then NPD director Chief Superintendent Edgardo Ladao came up with a P450,000 reward for the suspects’ arrest.

Sumera was gunned down on the morning of March 24 a few meters away from her house on Silonian street in Barangay Maysilo. Police said that at least five suspected members of the New People’s Army (NPA), including a woman, were involved in the killing.

The Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, the police unit tasked to investigate the case, filed on April 4 murder charges against Carlos Alejandro, an alleged NPA leader based in northern Luzon and four others for Sumera’s killing.

John, however, said he is not convinced that the NPA has something to do with the case, claiming his wife had no quarrel with the group.

Sumera, president of a homeowners’ association in Barangay Maysilo, has an ongoing dispute with the head of another homeowners’ group in the area when she was murdered. But John also claimed that the other group “has no capability” to carry out his wife’s murder.

John believed that “powerful and influential people” ordered his wife killed.

He said the case was already elevated to the Department of Justice three months ago “with not much progress.”