Cardeño linked to 3 slain kidnap suspects

One of the hand guns recovered from three suspected kidnappers slain in Wednesday’s shootout with policemen in Cavite was traced yesterday to Superintendent Rafael Cardeño, who went AWOL (absent without leave) after he was tagged as a principal suspect in the New Year’s Eve murder of a fellow police officer.

Police investigators were tight-lipped on their follow-up operations, but sources said they were not ruling out the possibility of Cardeño’s involvement in the current rash of kidnapping incidents in Metro Manila and nearby provinces.

The probers were still tracing ownership of the other guns taken from the slain suspects’ hideout in Barangay Manggahan in General Trias town, Cavite.

Elements of the elite Police Anti-Crime Emergency Response (PACER) who conducted the operation against the suspects, recovered the P2 million ransom paid by the family of kidnap victim Carl Anthony Penano who was snatched on Monday in Carmona town, also in Cavite.

The police also confiscated a bullet-riddled Mitsubishi Adventure van, an M-16 Armalite rifle, three 9 mm. pistols, two fragmentation grenades, two cellular phone-activated bombs and two leather wallets, one of which contained a list of prospective kidnap victims.

A Camp Crame source said the particular gun traced to Cardeño virtually confirmed the fugitive policeman’s links to one of the slain suspects, Rodolfo Patinio, who escaped from his maximum security detention cell at Camp Crame last June 19, along with Faisal Marohombsar, leader of the dreaded Pentagon kidnap gang based in Central Mindanao.

Marohombsar was also killed in a gunbattle with combined elements of the police and the military in Magallanes town, Cavite last Aug. 25.

Cardeño worked as executive officer of former Land Transportation Office chief Edgardo Abenina before he was implicated in the Dec. 31 murder of police Capt. Baron Cervantes, self-appointed spokesman for the rightist Young Officers’ Union (YOU).

Cardeño and Abenina were among the founding members of the Rebolusyonaryong Alyansang Makabansa (RAM), the progenitor of YOU, which has been persistently linked to alleged plots to grab power and set up a military junta in the country.

Cardeño and some disgruntled mid-level police officers, among them Superintendent Diosdado Valeroso, allegedly formed the RAM-YOU coalition following repeated failures of the original military rightist group Reform the Armed Forces Movement to topple the Aquino administration.

Prior to his death, Cervantes blew the whistle on alleged destabilization moves by RAM against the Arroyo administration.

Police intelligence sources also claimed that Marohombsar’s lair in Magallanes was a known safehouse of the RAM.

Meanwhile, Chief Superintendent Eduardo Matillano, head of the Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, gave assurances on the safety of cashiered Marine Sgt. Joseph Mostrales, confessed gunman in the Cervantes murder, as well as two other suspects in the case, Jaime Centeno and Erlindo Torres.

Cervantes’ family expressed fears of a rubout of vital witnesses in his murder, citing the Wednesday slaying of Patinio and former Marine troopers Diosdado Santos and Eugene Radam in General Trias.

Mostrales has tagged the three as the ones who conducted the surveillance on Cervantes’ home in Las Piñas shortly before he was gunned down, making them potential state witnesses in the case.

However, PNP spokesman Leonardo Bataoil and Cavite police director Senior Superintendent Samuel Pagdilao Jr. asserted that the General Trias incident was a legitimate encounter. — Christina Mendez