2 AWOL soldiers held for 2002 Albay killing

MANILA, Philippines - Agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) arrested last weekend two Army soldiers tagged in the 2002 killing of a 21-year-old student during his birthday celebration in a resort in Albay.            

NBI Director Magtanggol Gatdula said the two suspects, M/Sgt. Mario Velasco, 49, and Sgt. Jaime Onquit, 41, were both arrested in Tanay, Rizal where they used to be detailed with the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division.

Both suspects, now detained at the NBI jail, went AWOL (absent without official leave) after the killing of Joel Asejo, a student of Bicol University, in 2002.

Still being hunted down are two other soldiers, namely M/Sgt. Edgardo Andrecio and T/Sgt. Vicente Ganaban Jr., who both had gone AWOL, too.

Another suspect, M/Sgt. Wilfredo de Guzman, was arrested in 2003 and detained at the Legazpi City jail, while the sixth suspect, Sgt. Alex Estacio, is out on bail.

The NBI’s Death Investigation Division led by lawyer Romulo Asis said the victim’s father, Jose Asejo, sought the agency’s help in arresting the other suspects in his son’s death.

Judge Vladimir Brusola of the Legazpi City Regional Trial Court Branch 6 has issued the warrants of arrest for the murder suspects.

The young Asejo was shot during an altercation with the suspects during his birthday celebration in 2002 at the Magayon Spring Resort in Sto. Domingo, Albay.

Last July 2, NBI operatives, acting on information, arrested Velasco in his residence at the market site in Barangay Sampaloc, Tanay town. Onquit was nabbed near Camp Capinpin, also in Tanay, on the same day.