Doc’s slay suspect: Have pity on me

CAMP VICENTE LIM, Laguna – "Have pity on me. They are squeezing the wrong guy."

Thus declared Rolando Rivera, a 21-year-old sociology graduate of the University of the Philippines-Los Baños (UPLB) when he surrendered to Director Domingo Reyes Jr., Southern Tagalog police director, here yesterday.

Rivera said he decided to give himself up after learning that the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) had ordered a manhunt for him and two others in connection with the May 11 killing of Dr. Franklin Avellaneda of the St. Luke’s Medical Center in the compound of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Center at the UPLB.

The NBI has tagged Rivera as one of three men who allegedly murdered Avellaneda and nearly killed the doctor’s companion, Edmund Dayag, said to be an information technology officer of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) in Quezon City.

Rivera’s surrender was reportedly arranged by Los Baños Mayor Cesar Perez and Los Baños police chief Raymund Perlado. His aunt-lawyer Nena Palencia-Rivera and Perlado accompanied him.

The NBI has filed charges of robbery-homicide and frustrated murder with the Los Baños Municipal Trial Court against Rivera, Kissinger Kraft, 21, a UPLB sociology student and an officer of the Tau Gamma fraternity; and Mark Alba, 20, also a UPLB sociology student and Tau Gamma member.

But in a separate charge sheet, the local police did not mention Rivera and instead named another sociology student, a certain Manuel "Noel" Zamora, as the alleged companion of Kraft and Alba in the Avellaneda killing.

Perlada said Dayag probably mistook Rivera as Zamora when he (Dayag) was shown pictures of Tau Gamma officers by the UPLB student affairs department.

"They (NBI) knocked on the wrong door," Perlado said.

Rivera’s aunt said she was forced to surrender her nephew based on the call of lawyer Edmund Arugay, NBI director for the National Capital Region (NCR).

She said she informed Arugay about Zamora’s involvement in the crime but that she was ignored.

She quoted Arugay as retorting, "Isuko mo na lang ang pamangkin mo (Just surrender your nephew)." — With Mike Frialde