5 bodies found in Manila, QC

MANILA, Philippines - Five unidentified persons – three women and two men – believed to have been summarily executed were found in Manila and Quezon City yesterday.

Four of the victims were stuffed into balikbayan boxes. These corrugated cardboard boxes are usually filled with gifts sent by balikbayans    v or Filipinos returning to the country after living or working overseas.

Manila Police District (MPD) homicide section’s Senior Police Officer Virgo Villareal said the first victim, a woman, was found at around 12:30 a.m. yesterday along Maria Clara street in Blumentritt. She was described to be between 50 and 55 years old, with short hair, and clad in a pink t-shirt, denim pants and black slippers.

The second woman, found in a dimly lit portion of Laong Laan street, is between 40 and 45 years old, long haired, and wearing a red t-shirt and denim pants. She was barefooted.

Both women bore ligature marks on the neck and two yellow nylon cords measuring up to nine feet were found in the boxes where the bodies were placed.

The third victim, a man, was discovered along the East Service Road of the North Luzon Expressway in Barangay Unang Sigaw, Quezon City at around 4 a.m. The body was not in a box.

Two hours later, at around 6 a.m., the bodies of a man and a woman, described to be around 35 to 40 years old, were discovered in balikbayan boxes in Barangay San Antonio, Quezon City. Investigators believe the two may have been strangled as well. The words “Budol Ako” were found written on the boxes.

Quezon City Police District (QCPD) Station 2 commander Superintendent Pedro Sanchez said the three victims, like the two found in Manila, were bound with nylon rope and strangled before being placed in two large boxes that were left among heaps of garbage.

The victims were all found with wads of newspaper cutouts, also known as “budol money.” The cutouts, usually put in bags, are used by con artists – called “budol-budol” – to fool their victims. 

Related killings?

Police said two vans were used to dump the bodies of the two women found in Manila.

QCPD investigator SPO1 Joselito Gagaza said Alaxander Malazarte, a resident in Barangay San Antonio, noticed a white van parked in front of a garbage heap at around 2:30 a.m. yesterday. He failed to get the van’s plate number and model.

Malazarte was in his house and thought the van’s occupants were just disposing garbage. He later became suspicious and reported the incident to village officials, who went to the site and opened the boxes.

Inspector Elmer Monsalve, chief of the QCPD’s homicide investigation section, said that on the morning of Aug. 5, the bodies of two men were also found in balikbayan boxes. One was found in Barangay Masambong while the other was dumped in Barangay Sto. Domingo.

Monsalve admitted that until the bodies of all the victims have been identified, only then would investigators be able to determine if the killings are related.