New witness: I was hired to kill Robin’s half-brod

SAN MATEO, ISABELA — The murder of Rodolfo "Gino" Padilla, half-brother of action star Robin Padilla, was first hatched in 2000, confessed a 39-year-old witness who also tagged one of the action star’s kin as the brains behind Gino’s abduction and killing.

Ignacio Ramones, who wanted to turn state witness in the case, admitted in his two-page sworn affidavit that Crispin Cariño, one of the uncles of Eva Cariño, Robin’s mother, offered him the job to abduct and kill Gino and his mother Jenny Serafica way back in October 2000.

In the affidavit dated April 22 obtained by The STAR from the San Mateo Police, Ramones admitted that Crispin hired him with one Juan Dagdag of Cuyapo, Nueva Ecija to execute the plan in exchange for an amount.

However, Ramones confessed that they failed to execute the plan due to difficulty in penetrating Gino’s farm which was tightly-guarded then.

In December 2001 or more than a year after the plan was first aborted, Ramones said Crispin approached him again to push through with their plan, this time to "get" Gino’s mother. He said that Crispin gave him P10,000 as partial payment.

Ramones claimed Crispin told him that the (Cariños) wanted to get rid of Gino and his mother "because of a long-standing land dispute."

Last January, however, Ramones claimed that he finally refused Crispin’s invitation for them to "talk" on the progress of their "plan." He learned two months later that the plan was already executed.

After the killing, he said, Crispin summoned him again and told to keep his mouth shut about their previous negotiations.

Last week, Catalino Mercado, one of the suspects in the case, disclosed in a sworn affidavit that three uncles of Robin’s mother hired him and six others to get Gino for P400,000.

In a six-page sworn affidavit obtained by the police here following Mercado’s arrest here, the suspect identified brothers Crispin, Wilson and Gil Cariño as the brains behind Gino’s killing.

Mercado claimed before agents of the National Bureau of Investigation-Cabanatuan City that he served as look-out when their group went to Gino’s farmhouse at around 8 p.m. last March 8.

He said that his companions, one Felino Roque, Ador Puyat, Junior Aquino, Ruben Jose, Reynaldo Enriquez, Allan Gamboa and a certain "Hapon" were the ones who actually entered and seized Gino inside his farmhouse in Barangay Bibiclat in Cuyapo, Nueva Ecija.

Mercado also identified Gamboa as the one who gunned down Sixto de Gracia, caretaker of Gino family’s farmhouse, while the others burned the farmhouse, a hand tractor and a car. Gino, he said, was dragged inside the van.

After the incident, he said, their group proceeded to Carmen in Rosales, Pangasinan with their kidnap victim Gino. It was here, he said, where he left Roque’s group and went back to Isabela where Roque’s group fetch him for the "job."

A week after the abduction, Gino’s decomposing body was found in Pantabangan, Nueva Ecija.