NBI intensifies hunt for campus killers

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said yesterday it has intensified the manhunt for the three other killers of University of Sto. Tomas (UST) mechanical engineering student Mark Welson Chua who had exposed bribery and corruption at the UST-Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) two years ago.

NBI Director Reynaldo Wycoco said agents nationwide will continue searching for Paul Joseph Tan, Eduardo Tan and Michael Von Rainard Mangangbao, while partner in crime, UST student Arnulfo Appari Jr., was meted death penalty for killing Chua last Wednesday.

The three have warrants of arrest issued by Manila Judge Romulo Lopez of Regional Trial Court Branch 18.

Chua’s mother Amet said the conviction of only one of the killers is not enough to compensate for the death of her only son.

"Though it’s a good start, I won’t be at peace until other killers and the mastermind are arrested and prosecuted," she said. She is hoping for the immediate arrest of the three other suspects in the killing.

Chua’s body was fished out from Pasig River on March 18, 2002, a month after the exposing bribery and corruption at the ROTC.

In rendering a guilty verdict, Lopez said the court found the perpetrators "to have enjoyed and were delighted in making Chua suffer slowly and gradually causing the latter unnecessary physical pain in the consummation of the criminal act."

"The perpetrators’ actuations denote sadism and marked degree of malice and perversity. Chua’s inhuman death was augmented by the use of other process of sufferings for the assailants’ satisfaction," the judge noted.

Lopez noted that "it is worth to consider that the reason for the killing were vindictiveness and to put an end to the talks about Chua and Yumol’s exposé of the alleged corruption in the ROTC." — Cecille Suerte Felipe