Isabela cops told to turn over slay suspect

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya — The Nueva Ecija prosecutor’s office has ordered the San Mateo, Isabela police to turn over a detained suspect in the abduction-killing of Rodolfo "Gino" Padilla, 27-year-old half-brother of action star Robin Padilla, for preliminary investigation.

Gino’s mother Jenny Serafica earlier told The STAR that the San Mateo police was supposed to present suspect Catalino Mercado last July 2 for inquest before Nueva Ecija prosecutor Mario Veloso.

"But without a valid reason, they failed to turn him over," she said.

The San Mateo police have until July 31 to turn over Mercado whom they have detained since June 7 in connection with another case — a series of robberies in band in Isabela.

But Senior Inspector Reynaldo Sinaun Sr., San Mateo police chief, said Mercado was no longer in their custody, saying they turned him over to the town’s Bureau of Jail Management and Penology two weeks ago.

Gino’s mother has decried what she described was the San Mateo police’s "mishandling" of Mercado during his detention, resulting in his "suspicious" complete retraction of his alleged participation in Gino’s abduction-killing.

She claimed that Mercado made his retraction in the absence of any lawyer from either side, and that he was just asked to fill out a "retraction form."

In his first affidavit on April 22 this year, Mercado said he served as "lookout" when Gino was abducted from their farmhouse in Barangay Bibiclat in Cuyapo, Nueva Ecija.

He said his companions gunned down Sixto de Gracia, the Padillas’ farm caretaker, and torched the farmhouse.

Mercado, also implicated in cases of rape and robbery in band in Nueva Ecija, alleged that brothers Crispin, Wilson and Gil Cariño, uncles of Robin’s mother Eva Cariño, masterminded Gino’s murder, hiring him and six others to kill Gino and his mother for P400,000.

However, Mercado, in his second affidavit dated April 27, recanted his earlier testimony, claiming he begged off the night they were to abduct Gino.

He, however, still claimed that the three Cariño brothers were the brains behind Gino’s killing.

Mercado later issued a third affidavit, this time completely retracting all his previous statements.

"Now, we are the ones being persecuted," Gino’s mother said, adding that Mercado now claims that they were the ones who forced him to link the Cariños to her son’s killing.

Mercado, in his latest affidavit, even made it appear that "we convinced him to execute his first two affidavits in exchange for a huge amount," she said.

Mercado, she said, claimed that he made the retraction because they failed to pay him.

Gino’s mother denied that they ever made an offer to Mercado for him to fabricate evidence and blame the Cariños for Gino’s killing.

Meanwhile, House Minority Leader and Nueva Vizcaya Rep. Carlos Padilla appealed for a speedy investigation into his nephew’s killing.

Rep. Padilla, whose cousin, the late former Assemblyman and Camarines Norte governor Roy Padilla, is Robin and Gino’s father, criticized the police for extracting statements from the suspect in the absence of any lawyer.

Earlier, he said his nephew’s abduction and killing might have something to do with a long-standing dispute among Gino’s relatives on a vast tract of land in Nueva Ecija.