P.2-M bounty for Fil-Chinese trader’s killers

The Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce Inc. (FCCI) offered yesterday a P200,000 bounty for information that could lead to the arrest and eventual prosecution of those who killed one of its members last Jan. 21 in Binondo, Manila.

Chief Inspector Alex Yanquiling Jr., Manila Police District homicide division chief, also presented sketches of three suspects in the murder of slain businessman Lester Lee Mancilla.

“These sketches of three suspects in the Mancilla murder case, acted as the driver, the hitman, and his back-up, according to our witnesses,” said Yanquilling during a press conference at the press office of the Philippine National Police (PNP) in Camp Crame.

Mancilla, owner of the PEMA plastics manufacturing firm in Novaliches, Quezon City, was gunned down by three  unidentified men on board a Hyundai Starex van with an unknown plate number near the corner of Gandara and Soler streets. He was on his way to the YMCA basketball court in Manila when attacked.

Yanquiling said investigators are eyeing two motives in Mancilla’s killing – business-related and personal – because the slain businessman reportedly womanized.

“We are still verifying information circulating in cellular phone text messages that Mancilla’s alleged lover, dancer Euanne Bautista, could be involved in his slaying,” said Yanquilling.

“We’re verifying text messages that have circulated that Mancilla has stopped sending money regularly to this woman, who allegedly has another model boyfriend and a Filipino-Chinese man as lovers.”

According to Yanquiling, text messages from Bautista, a former dancer of That’s Entertainment and Wowowee television shows, “indicated that the woman was trying to extort money from Mancilla who resisted and was shot in the process.”

He said investigators tried to locate Bautista, but she apparently had abandoned her two known residences.  They were able to track her down when she was confined in a hospital, but she refused to cooperate with investigators.

Mancilla is the uncle of Kenshi Yu, the Filipino-Chinese boy allegedly kidnapped by a group led by former congressman and actor Dennis Roldan.

Investigators have ruled out Roldan’s connection to the killing since Mancilla was not among those who were actively pursuing the case against the former congressman.         – With Fritsche Bautista