2 farmhands charged for caretaker’s slay

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has filed murder charges against two helpers of a Bulacan farm for the killing of their superior last Nov. 5.

Regional director Edward Villarta, of the NBI-National Capital Region (NCR), said the two suspects – Jeson Caserva, 19, and Jolito Andales, 18 – were charged for bludgeoning Elmer Aljar, 30, caretaker of the Palatex Farm in Barangay Malawak, Bustos, Bulacan, with iron pipes.

The suspects told the NBI that they had worked in the farm for nearly a year and received a daily wage of P180 for collecting chicken manure and placing it in sacks.

They said they were tasked to collect some 500 sacks of dry chicken manure in a week, which would be sold as fertilizers.

But they said they had encountered difficulty keeping the chicken manure dry, thus angering Aljar who withheld their salaries for two weeks.

“He would often shout at us and berate us because the (chicken manure) was always wet. At one time he even told us that we should just eat it,” they told NBI probers.

At around 10:30 p.m. of Nov. 5, Aljar reportedly entered the suspects’ sleeping quarters and scolded them.

When Aljar turned his back on them, the suspects grabbed iron pipes, about three or four feet long, and fatally struck the farm caretaker thrice on the head and thrice on different parts of the body.

A security guard later saw the two running down the stairs, and other witnesses spotted them boarding a passenger vehicle. 

The following day, the farm’s security agency found them in Kamuning, Quezon City and turned them over to the NBI-NCR.