3 in Isabela massacre get 100-year jail terms

ILAGAN, Isabela — A couple and their co-accused were sentenced by a local court to at least 100-year jail term each for the gruesome killing of a wealthy couple and five others, including a four-year-old boy, last March.

Judge Bernabe Mendoza of the Regional Trial Court-Roxas (Isabela) Branch, imposed last Friday the verdict on Eddie Obarre and his wife, Charita, and Ramelito Ybanez. The three also received 12 more years in jail for qualified theft.

Superintendent Baltazar Israel, police chief of Aurora town here where the killings took place, said that last Friday’s verdict came a week after the three accused have pleaded guilty to the crime in their bid to lower the charge from murder to homicide.

Charita was convicted to 12 to 20 years of  imprisonment for the death of each victims or equivalent to 84 to 140 years, while Bernabe and Ramelito were sentenced to a total of 70 to 119 years each.

The conviction came almost six months after the cold-blooded murder of Victorio Romero, 63, and his wife, Victoria, 60; children, Joy Romero-Guevarra, 36, and Hazel Bartolome, 28; and grandchildren, Carmeline, 9, Cielo, 7, and Angelo, 4, inside their residence in Barangay Bagong Tanza, Aurora, Isabela last March 19.

The accused, all household helps of the Romeros, were arrested by authorities in Nueva Ecija a month after the gruesome killings.

The victims’ lifeless bodies were only discovered by neighbors a day after their deaths. The victims bore multiple hack wounds and severe beatings.

The Romeros, a wealthy family here, were engaged in large-scale palay and corn  trading business.