Cavite mayor, DOJ prosecutor questioned on Viña slay

A town mayor and a prosecutor from the Department of Justice (DOJ) have been included in the investigation into the killing of Senior Superintendent Teofilo Viña in Cavite Tuesday night, a ranking police official said yesterday.

Cavite police director Senior Superintendent Roberto Rosales said General Trias Mayor Dencito Campana and DOJ Prosecutor Emmanuel Velasco have been included in the list of people who are being summoned to shed light on the killing.

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has also started its probe into the killing.

NBI Director Reynaldo Wycoco said they are tracking down a certain Renato Josue Arenas, a retired policeman and alleged cohort of the principal suspect, Medar Cruz.

Wycoco said Arenas was seen at the crime scene but has gone into hiding. He added Cruz also tested positive for powder burns in a paraffin test, which meant he fired a gun.

Cruz repeatedly denied his involvement in the killing. He celebrated his 26th birthday yesterday while in detention at the Police Anti-Crime Emergency Response (PACER) headquarters at Camp Crame in Quezon City.

Wycoco said their probe also seeks to establish a possible connection between the two assassination attempts on self-proclaimed undercover agent Mary "Rosebud" Ong, the killing of her former lover John Campos in Parañaque City last Dec. 5, and Viña.

According to Wycoco, Ong managed to escape being killed on Oct. 21 and on Nov. 28.

The Cavite police, on the other hand, said that aside from Velasco and Campana, they have also placed under questioning Eustacio Cruz, the father of the principal suspect.

Rosales said they are focusing on statements made by the elder Cruz claiming that Viña and two other unnamed senior police officers met his son at his residence in Virginia in the United States in 2001 where he worked as a forklift operator.

Rosales added investigators will also retrace Viña’s activities since his assignment as director for the Visayas region of the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF).

Viña, who was on "floating" status, was gunned down at a gathering in Tanza, Cavite.

The police officer had been implicated as one of the principal suspects in the abduction and murder of publicist Salvador "Bubby" Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito in November 2000.

He was among the 22 suspects who were initially charged in connection with the double murder case.

Local police investigators, however, have not established the motive behind Viña’s killing.

Rosales said both Campana and Velasco were also present during the gathering when Viña was shot.

Velasco, however, told reporters yesterday he simply heard gunshots after he stepped out of his vehicle. "I thought we were the targets," he said.

Velasco said he was merely visiting Tanza barangay councilor Flaviano Satsatin when Viña was fatally shot.

"I immediately ran out and took cover when successive shots rang out. There was chaos," he told The STAR.

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Hemogenes Ebdane, for his part, did not discount the possibility that Viña’s killing may be linked to the Dacer-Corbito kidnap-slay case.

"One angle we can talk about is his possible involvement in the Dacer killing," Ebdane said.

Ebdane said the killing of Viña will have an impact on the double murder case now pending at the Manila regional trial court.— With Delon Porcalla, Cecille Suerte Felipe