Two UP - Baguio students killed by kidnappers

Kidnappers executed a son of a wealthy Filipino-Chinese family from Baguio City and his girlfriend after having been paid a reduced ransom, police said yesterday.

Police officers recovered the body of John Carlos Posadas Leong, 23, of Laubach Road, Baguio City on an embankment of Quezon Road in Barangay San Isidro in Mexico town, Pampanga, at around 4 a.m. Sunday.

The body of his girlfriend, Honey Tingale, 26, of Project 4 in Quezon City, was found two hours later in a ricefield in Barangay San Pablo Libutad in nearby San Simon town.

The Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF), which is conducting its own investigation, said Leong and his girlfriend were abducted by armed men on March 8.

Both victims were students of the University of the Philippines in Baguio. Their captors immediately contacted their families and demanded P1 million for their safe release.

The ransom was reportedly reduced to P200,000 after negotiations.

PAOCTF chief Director Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. said investigators are looking at other possible angles.

"There are other motives that have surfaced and we are checking on them," Ebdane said.

He said there was a possibility that a love triangle was involved.

"A third party may have been involved, possibly a jilted suitor. The kidnapping could simply be a cover-up," the PAOCTF chief said.

In a report to the Central Luzon police, Pampanga police director Senior Superintendent Ismael Rafanan said Leong had two gunshot wounds – one in the right side of his nape and another in the back of his skull.

Tingale, on the other hand, bore a single bullet wound in the back of her head.

Mexico police chief Superintendent Agustin Primero said residents in the area heard gunshots about an hour before Leong’s body was found.

"This information strengthens our theory that the victims were killed by their captors exactly where we found them," Primero said.

In a related development, Ebdane said he did not count the possibility that some unreported kidnap for ransom activities in Metro Manila and nearby provinces were the handiwork of groups seeking to destabilize the peace and order situation by making the police organization look bad.

"It is a very dangerous possibility so we are looking into it right now," the PAOCTF chief said.

Malacañang said earlier kidnapping cases dropped to fewer than five a month under the new government of President Arroyo to refute criticism that abductions were again on the rise.