MANILA, Philippines – A senior high school student was stabbed dead by a schoolmate over a brewing turf war among feuding neighborhood gangs yesterday in Quezon City.
Simon Salud, 20, a fourth year student at the Commonwealth High School in Barangay Commonwealth succumbed to a lone puncture wound in the chest apparently inflicted by an icepick, said Chief Inspector Benjamin Elenzano Jr., deputy chief of the Quezon City Police District Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit (CIDU).
Suspect Mike Roldan Roquitez, 19, also a senior student in the same school, has been arrested and is detained at the police holding center as charges are being readied against him. Records showed the incident happened at around 6:50 a.m. after the Music class was over under Joan Estacio, music and physical education (MAPE) teacher of both victim and suspect.
Estacio said she was at the school stage holding the next class when suddenly the students around her gave a loud cry. When she turned, she allegedly saw Salud and Roquitez engaged in a fist fight at the quadrangle below. She said she called out to the two to stop but her cries fell on deaf ears. Soon, she saw one of the two rushing out and tried to hold on to the arm of who she thought was the suspect. It turned out it was the victim who was running away in an apparent attempt to save himself.
The STAR gathered that the incident was not the first time for the victim and the suspect. Roquitez’s teacher adviser who declined to be named said the two have been put on the carpet in June last year for a similar confrontation. It was not clear why they were not expelled from the school.
At press time, one of the student-witnesses at the CIDU making a statement to the police received a call on her cellphone that already, members of Salud’s group have rushed to the neighborhood where the suspect lives “armed with improvised shotgun” (sumpak) in an apparent bid to avenge the death of their member.
SPO1 Neil Garnace, officer-on-case, allayed the fears of the students and teachers gathered at the CIDU to shed light on the incident saying the local barangay officials will already be dealing with the problem before calling the police.