Hacienda manager tagged in slay

BACOLOD CITY — Police arrested a 55-year-old farm manager last Monday for the 2004 killing of an agrarian reform beneficiary in the highly contested Hacienda Conchita Villanueva in La Castellana, Negros Occidental.

The suspect, Juanito Suriaga, was arrested on the strength of a warrant issued by La Castellana Regional Trial Court Judge Fernando Ilumba.

Police collared Suriaga as he attended a court hearing on a grave threat case involving four security guards.

Suriaga was charged for the killing of Teresita Mameng, 59. He also faces eight counts of attempted homicide for the wounding of eight other agrarian reform beneficiaries, including Mameng’s son, Jaime, on the night of Sept. 3, 2004.

Suriaga was tagged as the one who gave orders to 14 armed men, including four security guards, to fire at the houses of agrarian reform beneficiaries who had occupied a portion of the hacienda owned by Mario Villanueva.

Mameng’s body was found the next day by her relatives and neighbors in a nearby sugarcane field with a gunshot wound in the chest.

The victims sought the help of the militant peasant group Task Force Mapalad in filing homicide charges against the security guards and several John Does with the La Castellana RTC. 

Late last month, the complainants, through their legal counsel, filed a motion for amended information to include Sariaga among the accused.