4 bar workers nabbed for killing customer

MANILA, Philippines - Police arrested yesterday four male workers of a karaoke bar in Quiapo, Manila for allegedly beating a customer to death.

Passersby discovered Ronaldo Calderon, 33, a fastfood restaurant cook, badly beaten and unconscious at around 6 a.m. last Sept. 8 at a garbage dump near the Solvent KTV bar along Quezon Boulevard in Quiapo. He was taken to the Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center where he succumbed to massive head injuries inflicted by a blunt instrument four days later.

Manila Police District’s homicide section chief, Inspector Armando Macaraeg, identified the suspects as bar manager Jonathan Lico, 32; waiter Lawrence Manlulu, 18; waiter Danny Canete, 26; and doorman Larry de Mesa, 36.

The victim’s friend, Alan Arellano, said that at around 4 a.m., the victim reportedly tore up a bill for the drinks they had consumed, prompting bar employees to gang up on him.

Arellano said that just before he ran away, he saw Lico hit the victim on the head with a lead pipe.

Another witness, Herbert Jimenez, told police he saw Manlulu, Canete and De Mesa, together with a certain “Dodong,” carry the victim out of the bar and put him on top of the garbage dump.

Macaraeg said murder charges are being prepared against the suspects.