San Juan offers P.1-M reward for toddler’s killer

MANILA, Philippines - The San Juan City government is offering P100,000 as a reward for information that would lead to the arrest of the man who killed and raped an 11-month-old girl whose body was found under a parked jeepney last Friday.

Mayor Guia Gomez announced the reward following a meeting with the city council, which approved it yesterday afternoon. She said information about the girl’s killer should be relayed to the city police and the reward would be immediately made available, with no questions asked.

The girl, Geralyn Cortez, was last seen alive at past 3 a.m. on Friday, based on a closed-circuit television footage of her being carried by a man near the parked jeepney.

Superintendent Jose Rivera, officer-in-charge of the city police, said they are closing in on the suspect in Cortez’s killing but refused to name names.

A source said the suspect is a vendor at a nearby shop who has been missing since Cortez’s body was discovered under the jeepney by driver Efren Martinez along Don Ejercito street in Barangay Tibagan at past 8 a.m. Friday.

Martinez told police he was cleaning his vehicle when he noticed a diaper lying nearby. When he looked under his vehicle, he saw Cortez’s body.

The girl’s parents, Ariel and Geraldine, identified her body at a morgue in Pasig City.

Investigators from the Eastern Police District said Cortez died instantaneously from being hit in the abdomen with a blunt instrument. The impact affected her liver.

Rivera also reported that Cortez’s genitals showed signs of being raped.