Autopsy results show Tetangco brod not the main target - cops

ANGELES CITY, Philippines – Autopsy findings showing torture marks on the body of one of three men found dead in a Ford Expedition here last Thursday have boosted a police theory that the brother of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas governor Amando Tetangco, one of the victims, was not the main target of the killers.

Senior Superintendent Manuel Gaerlan, Pampanga police director, told The STAR that Florencio Yap had heavy bruises on the face and knee and a broken left arm.

No such marks though were observed on the bodies of Tetangco’s brother Rene and Yap’s aide Dennis Guinto.

Chief Superintendent Arturo Cacdac, Central Luzon police director, said no suspects though had been identified as of yesterday.

“We are backtracking on the events that happened way back June 1,” he said in a phone interview.

The bodies of the three men riddled with M-16 bullets were found in the Ford Expedition owned by Yap in a vacant lot along Friendship Avenue in Barangay Pampang here last Thursday.

The sport utility vehicle though was spotted in the vacant lot as early as 10 p.m. the previous day.

Gaerlan said the M-16 rifles were apparently used in torturing Yap.

Gaerlan, meanwhile, downplayed reports that the killing could be linked to the fatal shooting last Friday afternoon of businessman Richard Olalia, a relative of mayor-elect Jomer Hizon of Bacolor town.

Guinto, who was killed along with Yap and Tetangco, was reportedly a close ally of Hizon.

Gaerlan said Olalia was killed while his son Frane was wounded when motorcycle-riding men fired at them in Barangay San Agustin in the City of San Fernando.

He said Frane later identified one of the suspects, a known gun-for-hire, from the rogues’ gallery of the police.

Meanwhile, Cacdac and Tetangco’s brother Jimmy both denied reports that the three victims went to a cockfight in Mexico town last Wednesday afternoon.

“My brother was with my sister Mila at Robinson’s mall in San Fernando up to 5 p.m. that day. My sister left him there after he said Jack (Yap) would pick him up there,” Jimmy said.

Cacdac also said the three victims never went to a cockfight in Mexico and that Yap, not Tetangco, had a poultry farm there.

Jimmy said that at around about 7 p.m. of June 2, his brother, Yap, and Guinto were already in Angeles City when they called up King’s Poker and Sports Club to make reservations for dinner.

The club’s management earlier confirmed that the group was in their establishment on the night of June 1 up to past 4 a.m. the following day.

The three men, however, never made it to the sports club. At 10 p.m., their van was spotted in the vacant lot along Friendship Avenue, although it was only at around 8 a.m. the following day when a security guard from a nearby restaurant saw their bodies and reported this to the police.

Cacdac said he has not given any deadline to Task Force Yap-Tetangco to solve the case. “I do not want the task force to be pressured into resolving the crime,” he said.