2 teens in UP worker's rape-slay fall

MANILA, Philippines - Two teenagers tagged in the rape-slay of a 26-year-old marketing employee of the University of the Philippines hostel in Diliman were arrested in separate follow-up operations, Caloocan City officials said yesterday.

City police chief Senior Superintendent Jude Wilson Santos said charges of rape with homicide and two counts of robbery will be filed against Erick Macaraan, 18, while his 16-year-old alleged accomplice will be brought to the city social welfare and department office “for determination of discernment.” A third suspect, Erro Allid, alias Dandan, 29, remains at large.

Police said the suspects allegedly robbed, stripped and hogtied Jerry Manioto, then left him alone in a dimly lit part of Camarin. They later returned with Jee-Ann de Guzman, who they also robbed and stripped of her clothes.

They used the victim’s own underwear to gag her and strangle her if she made a sound. The 16-year-old boy held down De Guzman as Macaraan raped her in front of Manioto, according to investigators.

The teenagers fled when a passerby heard the noises De Guzman made as she was assaulted. Manioto managed to free himself and go to the nearest police precinct. Responding police officers found De Guzman already dead.

Mayor Enrico Echiverri lauded the police for the arrest of the two teenagers, who are residents of Barangay 178 in Camarin, where the victim also lived. He also gave the P100,000 reward to an informer who provided information that led to the suspects’ arrest.

Santos said his men tracked down the suspects in their hideouts in Plaridel, Bulacan and San Vicente Ferrer, Camarin and seized a pen gun, a homemade .38 caliber revolver and an ice pick sheathed in a holster tied to Macaraan’s right leg.

At around 9 p.m. Monday, the informer went to the police station in Camarin and “out of his own volition, gave very reliable information” on the incident.

The informer said he and Macaraan’s group, who called themselves the “Tropang Death Row (Death Row Troop),” had been drinking in San Vicente Ferrer and Macaraan – reportedly the gang’s leader – invited him to join in a robbery they planned to stage at the corner of Vanguard and Jasmin streets on Oct. 4.

The informer, who claimed to have dissociated himself from the group in 2006, said he refused the offer.

Asked why he led police to his former gangmates, the informer said his conscience bothered him because he used to join them in staging robberies and breaking into homes, mostly in Camarin. He said he has changed and told on the suspects to make amends.

Police also said Macaraan is a former inmate at the city’s Yakap Bata Foundation holding center for minors but escaped from the facility some two years ago by allegedly using the sharpened handle of a toothbrush to threaten the center’s unarmed guards. He was then charged with stealing a car.

Echiverri called on the country’s lawmakers to review the Juvenile Welfare Act in the light of recent crimes, wherein minors are seen as direct and active perpetrators, either by themselves or employed by organized crime syndicates.