Manhunt on for family tagged in massacre

MANILA, Philippines - Police officers are hunting down six persons, including five from the same family, after a court issued a warrant for their arrest for their alleged involvement in the massacre of five persons in 2011, Quezon City Police District (QCPD) director Senior Superintendent Richard Albano said Saturday.

Six of the seven accused have reportedly left their homes in Barangay Batasan Hills and gone into hiding, Albano said.

The suspects are Badilla brothers Francisco, Benjamin and Benedicto; Francisco’s son Arjay; Benjamin’s son Melvin; Marlon Andamo; and a certain Ecat.

All seven accused have been charged with five counts of murder and one count of frustrated murder, said Inspector Elmer Monsalve, head of the homicide investigation of the QCPD’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit (CIDU).

Monsalve said the arrest warrants were issued by Judge Edgar Dalmacio Santos of Regional Trial Court Branch 222.

He said Andamo was turned over to the custody of the QCPD-CIDU at Camp Karingal after he was found to have been detained for weeks at the QCPD Station 3 for drug possession.

The suspects were reportedly working at the barangay hall of Batasan Hills.

Witnesses tagged the seven accused as the ones who shot and killed five persons and wounded another on Nov. 28, 2011. Those killed were Liberato Paez, 50; Rogelio Diomampo, 36; Rogelio Agustin, 49; and Germinio Manansala, 44; and Armando Garcia, 47. Paez was the president of his neighborhood’s Masikap Homeowners Association.

The wounded was identified as Zaldy Ballesteros, 43.

In her sworn statement, Paez’s widow, Jessica, 47, described the Badillas and their relatives as “a family of toughies in our neighborhood.”

Jessica claimed the Badillas were angry at her husband since they would lose their home if the local government awarded the land to residents.

“They could not show any document proving that they are long-time residents,” she said.