Suspect in slay of Tetangco brod, 2 pals arrested

ANGELES CITY, Philippines – The suspected triggerman in the murder of a brother of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Amando Tetangco and two companions here three years ago, has been arrested in Panganiban, Catanduanes.

Chief Superintendent Edgardo Ladao, Central Luzon police director, said the arrested suspect, Allan Garcia, vanished after the killing of Tetangco’s brother Rene, his friend Florencio “Jack” Yap and the latter’s aide Dennis Guinto whose bullet-riddled bodies were found in Yap’s Ford Expedition along the Friendship Avenue in Barangay Pampang here in June 2010.

Garcia, a former member of a paramilitary group in Nueva Ecija, also had a pending arrest warrant for murder and grave threats in Peñaranda, Nueva Ecija, said Senior Superintendent Crizaldo Nieves, provincial police director.

He said Garcia was recently intercepted at a checkpoint in Catanduanes and a subsequent police check showed that he was wanted for three killings here.

Garcia was brought to Nueva Ecija for detention and questioning to determine other suspects in the killing, Ladao said.

In a previous interview with The STAR, Senior Superintendent Wendy Rosario, who then headed the task force probing the killing, apparently referred to Garcia as the driver of somebody who used to play poker with Yap.

Rosario said the driver, who he then declined to identify, reportedly owed Yap some P60,000.

Garcia’s cell phone number was the last one Yap had dialed as he, Tetangco and Guinto headed to a poker game at King’s Poker and Sports Club along Friendship Avenue here on the night of June 2, 2010.

“It would seem that the driver was in Nueva Ecija when Yap called him up. It was the last call Yap made at about 7:51 p.m. on the night they were murdered,” Rosario said.

“The driver used to work for another person with whom Yap had played poker for about a year before the murder,” he said.