Female writer charged for publisher's slay

CABANATUAN CITY, Philippines – Police have filed murder charges before the city prosecutor’s office against a freelance female broadcaster for the ambush-killing of a local publisher and her live-in partner here last Aug. 1. 

Charged was Annie Liwag, a writer of the defunct local paper Salida, of which the victim, Edilberto Cruz, was the publisher.

An active member of the Nueva Ecija Press Club, Liwag used to work for the provincial government-run radio dwNE during the term of the Josons.

She was charged together with the still unidentified man who she reportedly hired to pull off the killing.

Cruz, 45, was on his way home aboard his motorcycle when ambushed along the Maharlika Highway in Barangay San Juan Accfa on the night of Aug. 1.

Police submitted the affidavits of four witnesses, including Cruz’s 44-year-old wife Regina Pineda-Cruz and a police intelligence officer who alleged that Liwag offered him P10,000 to kill Cruz.

Pineda-Cruz said Liwag had all the motives to kill her husband, citing the testimonies of witnesses.

The police intelligence officer, in his affidavit, recalled that five days before the killing, Liwag told him about her “big problem” which turned out to be Cruz who she had introduced to him in the past as her live-in partner.

The police officer quoted Liwag as confiding to him that Cruz was using illegal drugs and was a womanizer and that they always had quarrels, which resulted in physical violence.

“She (Liwag) told me she wanted to leave Cruz and sell their house,” the police officer said.

Liwag, according to the police officer, asked him to end her “miseries” by killing Cruz and offered him P10,000 for the job.

The policeman said he declined her offer and just advised her to sort out her problems with Cruz.

A third witness, a 36-year-old neighbor of Cruz and Liwag, recalled that the victim once expressed fear that Liwag might have him killed as he was having an affair with another woman.

This witness corroborated the police officer’s statement that the live-in partners had been constantly quarrelling.

The witness recalled an incident when Liwag pointed a gun to Cruz, saying, “I can kill you if I want to.”

Liwag, according to her neighbor, used two guns in threatening Cruz: one that looked like a caliber .45 revolver and another short firearm. – With Ric Sapnu