2 Bilibid inmates plotted Mendoza’s slay
Credit to Author: Darwin Pesco| Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 16:15:30 +0000
Philippine National Police (PNP) said on Thursday that two inmates of the New Bilibid Prison plotted the killing of former Batangas Second District Rep. Edgar Mendoza and his two companions on January 8.
Criminal Investigation and Detection Group Director Maj. Gen. Joel Napoleon Coronel in a press briefing in Camp Crame, Quezon City identified the suspects as Sherwin Sanchez and Arthur Fajardo.
Sanchez was the principal suspect in the killing of Mendoza, Coronel said.
Mendoza was the lawyer of Sanchez in a murder case convicting him in 2015 and engaged with him in various legal subjects including real properties and financial transactions.
Allegedly irked that Mendoza asked money for his service even if he failed to get him out of jail, Sanchez plotted the killing with his co-inmate and friend, Fajardo, who is imprisoned for kidnapping.
“Sanchez asked Fajardo for persons [that] can be hired to carry out the killing,” Colonel told said.
According to Colonel, Fajardo communicated with his wife Jael to hire killers for P100,000.
“[There was] no intention to pay the amount agreed [upon]. Instead of paying, they just contracted killers,” he added.
Their five accomplices were identified as Kristine Fernandez, Jael’s assistant; Madonna Palermo, Jael’s household helper; Carlo Acuña; Erickson Balbastro; and Rodel Mercado, Sanchez’s cousin.
Jael, who surrendered to the police, said Palermo put sleeping pills in the coffee of Mendoza and his two companions when they visited her house at a subdivision in Calamba City, Laguna.
The visit of Mendoza in her house, on the pretext of a payout, was supported by the logbook entry on January 8 stating that he, with his driver Nicanor Mendoza and bodyguard Ruel Ruiz, arrived there, Coronel added.
When the three became unconscious, Acuña picked up Balbastro and Mercado from a convenience store. The two dragged the three into the car, stabbed them to death and burned the vehicle with the bodies of the victims inside in a remote place in Quezon province.
On January 9, the burned cadavers of Mendoza and his companions were found in Tiaong, Quezon.
Coronel bared that the three hired killers were both former detainees of the Batangas Provincial Jail.
On Wednesday, the PNP Crime Laboratory confirmed that the three bodies found in the burned car were Mendoza and his companions based on DNA testing.
According to Quezon Provincial Director Col. Audi Madrideo, the three were killed before their bodies were burned in a Honda Civic, found by witnesses at 1:45 am.
The suspects are now in the custody of police at Camp Vicente Lim in Laguna as three counts of murder will be filed against them.
A manhunt operation is ongoing to catch Mercado.
PNP chief Gen. Archie Francisco Gamboa said the case was now closed.
“By our own parameters on crime solution and crime clearance, this case is considered solved and is now elevated to the prosecution arm of the justice system,” Gamboa said.