Cebu slay suspect recants

CEBU CITY — A day after admitting to reporters his role in the July 24 ambush-slaying of two Customs officers, one of the two suspects now under the custody of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) recanted, claiming he does not know how to drive a motorcycle.

Suspect Juan Jesus Vergel de Dios earlier told reporters that he drove the motorcycle used by the other suspect, Rustico Fernandez, in gunning down Customs deputy collector for operations Eduardo Lao and examiner Bennet Soreno.

Meanwhile, Roberto Palomo, spokesman of the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service (CIIS), said Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor (PCUP) Commissioner Bambi Vergel de Dios called the CIIS office in Cebu to ask that it extend assistance to his brother, Juan Jesus Vergel de Dios.

Recalling their telephone conversation, Palomo quoted the PCUP official as allegedly saying, "The President knows about it."

Presidential liaison officer Bert Emphasis said he will bring the matter to the attention of President Arroyo.

Juan Jesus used to be the personal driver of erstwhile CIIS chief Felix Espino who has since been relieved and replaced by lawyer Rico Rey Francis Holganza, a former city councilor.

Espino was relieved apparently for failing to prevent the theft of two container vans while in Customs custody at the Cebu International Port.

The two vans were part of a 10-van shipment of smuggled rice from Singapore that Lao ordered seized.

The NBI believes the killing of Lao is tied to the seizure of the shipment. It is believed that Soreno just happened to be in Lao’s car when the ambush took place and that Lao was the actual target.

A high school senior, Alain Dave Ravina, was fatally hit by a stray bullet during the attack.

Fernandez was earlier implicated as the one who recruited two port workers to load the two vans onto the truck that spirited them out of the port.

Fernandez has admitted this, but denied being the gunwielder in the ambush, claiming that he was in Barangay Sambag I watching a basketball game when the killing took place.

Besides recanting his earlier confession, Juan Jesus now has a witness who claimed that he was with the suspect at the time of the incident.

CIIS special agent Dino Asuncion said he and another agent, Noel Torrecampo, were with Juan Jesus at a CIIS safehouse on R. Landon street when the ambush took place just a few meters away. — Freeman News Service