Eldest son of religious sect’s late head slain

BALANGA CITY — The eldest son of the late matriarch of the First International Sacrifice Valley Kilusang Katoliko, a local religious sect, was shot dead while watching a basketball game on television inside his bedroom in Barangay Sacrifice Valley, Hermosa town Wednesday night.

Senior Superintendent Hernando Zafra, Bataan police director, said the victim, Jose Benjamin Teruel, 63, reportedly the administrator of the multimillion-peso assets left by his mother, Maria Virginia Leongson, known as "Mama Viring" and "Ingkong" to her followers, sustained nine gunshot wounds, some of them in the head, from a caliber .45 automatic.

Zafra told The STAR that the gunman entered Teruel’s residence through a back window. Teruel’s wife, Cora, a barangay chairwoman, was in another room when the killing happened.

Teruel was declared dead on arrival at the Mayor Jose Payumo Memorial Hospital.

A joint team of the Hermosa and Dinalupihan police was dispatched to nearby Olongapo City, while a police-Army group scoured upland villages near Barangay Sacrifice Valley to look for his killer.

Police are probing if the reported dispute among Leongson’s eight children had something to do with Teruel’s killing.

Teruel had criticized his two brothers for allegedly disho—noring their mother’s will and claiming that everything in the religious sect changed after their mother died on May 14 last year.