KORONADAL CITY, Philippines — The police filed Tuesday a criminal case against a teacher who allegedly masterminded the murder last week of a student in Tampakan town in South Cotabato.
The teacher, Rustom Pedrosa Baloyo, 33, had an affair with the slain male student, Jade Vince Eribal, that went awry when he learned that the victim had a girlfriend.
Captain Jucint Aput, Tampakan police chief, said Wednesday they have filed a murder case against Baloyo based findings of investigators that he had the 22-year-old Eribal killed with a knife by an accomplice last October 8 in one of the barangays in the municipality.
Eribal was attacked with a knife by a motorcycle driver whom he had reportedly asked to accompany him somewhere.
His cadaver, with fatal stab wounds, was found in a grassy spot next day.
Aput said investigators have established, with the help of relatives and witnesses, that the suspect, now subject of a police manhunt, was paid by Baloyo to kill Eribal.
He said they also have the mobile phone of Baloyo containing messages about the criminal plot that he and the suspect had hatched.
Aput said Brig. Gen. Jamili Macaraeg, director of the Police Regional Office-12, had ordered them in the municipal police force and the South Cotabato Provincial Police Office to cooperate in searching for the suspect who had escaped.
Aput declined to identify the suspect, meantime, while efforts to locate him are still underway.