Suspects in rob-slay of student caught

After more than a month of operations, police have finally solved the robbery-slay of a 17-year-old male psychology student in Binondo, Manila with the arrest of the two suspects.

The killing of Joshua Rañola, a student of the City College of Manila, had brought condemnation from the public and had put the Manila police in bad light since the incident occurred just a stone’s throw away from the Binondo police station.

Rañola had just alighted from a jeepney and was waiting for another ride at Soler corner Reina Regente streets at about 7 p.m. last July 28 when two male suspects attempted to grab his backpack.

The victim reportedly held on to his backpack and tried to fight off the two robbers, prompting one of the suspects to stab him. Rañola was declared dead on arrival at the Metropolitan Hospital for a lone stab wound in the chest.

Officer-on-case SPO4 Athos de Quiros, through his web of informants, was able to identify the suspects through their aliases "Marlon" and "Ilong." However, the two suspects proved elusive by constantly changing hideouts.

The other day, De Quiros received a tip from one of his informants that the two suspects were detained at the Tondo police station on charges of vagrancy and illegal possession of deadly weapons.

Wasting no time, De Quiros proceeded to the Tondo police station where witnesses positively identified the two detainees as the persons who held up and stabbed the college student on the night of July 28.

The suspects, Marlon de Guzman, 19, and Marcelino Hernandez, alias "Ilong," 25, admitted to the crime before police and the witnesses. De Guzman admitted stabbing Rañola when the victim put up a fight.

The two, both members of Bahala na Gang, said they turned to robbery to sustain their drug habit.

Meanwhile, Rañola’s parents Elmo and Joy commended the operatives of the WPD’s Homicide Section, especially De Quiros, for their determination to solve the crime.

The father even accompanied the police in their hunt for the elusive killers, at times even going on his own for surveillance.

In between sobs, the mother said the death of her beloved son will not go in vain with the arrest of the suspects.

"We will see to it that the maximum penalty be meted on our son’s killers," she said.