Baguio rapist preys on minors

BAGUIO CITY — Police are on the lookout for a man who has raped four minors selling plastic bags at the city public market this year.

City social welfare officer Betty Fangasan confirmed the rape cases and described the suspect as between 35 and 40 years old.

Fangasan said the man, as modus operandi, would invite his prey to gather pine cones and pine wood, offering to pay her P100, but would molest her once she agreed.

The Cordillera Women Educational Resource Center reported this week that at least 17 women and children had been raped daily from January to August this year.

The figure marked an increase from the 14 daily rape cases during the same period last year. — Artemio Dumlao

Retired Cop, Wife Gunned Down

CALASIAO, Pangasinan — Armalite-wielding men killed a retired police officer and his wife inside their family-owned eatery here Thursday night, police said.

The victims, SPO4 Cesar de Vera Baguis, 55, and his wife Marilyn, 50, did not reach the hospital alive.

Baguis’ son Julius Cesar said he saw three men wearing baseball caps shoot his parents and then flee on board a motorcycle toward San Carlos City.

Police recovered 22 empty M-16 shells at the crime scene.

Baguis was detailed at the regional police command in San Fernando City before he retired in February last year.

Police still have no clues on the killing. — Eva Visperas, Cesar Ramirez

Partisans Attack MNLF Community

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao — Suspected partisans raided a community of Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) members in Carmen, North Cotabato the other day, killing a farmer, setting a vehicle and eight houses on fire and forcing dozens of families to flee their homes.

Officials said the hostilities started when lawmen and civilian volunteers, reportedly running after suspects in the murder of a village chief, clashed with MNLF forces at the boundary of Barangays Cadiis and Tampad in Carmen.

The Army’s 602nd Infantry Brigade, which has jurisdiction over Carmen and surrounding towns, confirmed that a policeman was killed in the firefight.

The hostilities worsened when suspected partisans, some of them identified with rivals of Andes Aliuden, the MNLF commander in the area, arrived and strafed houses with automatic firearms and 40-mm shoulder-fired grenade projectiles.

Although outnumbered, Aliuden and his followers shot it out with the attackers, leaving a villager dead and three others wounded.

While the gunbattle was going on, some of the partisans set a car and eight houses on fire. — John Unson

P.9-M ‘Hot’ Lumber Seized In Region 8

TACLOBAN CITY — Police and regional personnel of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources confiscated "illegally cut" lumber worth more than P900,000 in three separate operations here and in Samar this week.

"This shows that we are serious in addressing this problem," said Leonardo Sibbaluca, DENR-Region 8 director.

The biggest seizure was in San Jose district this city last Tuesday when a police team chanced upon about 30,000 board feet of lauan and yakal lumber worth P755,000, said to have come from Marabut, Samar, being towed by pumpboats.

The men manning the boats jumped into the water when the lawmen fired warning shots. A certain Nelson Puma later claimed the seized lumber and denied that it was illegally cut.

Also last Tuesday, 1,806 board feet of lauan flitches valued at P47,150 were seized in Barangay Tenani, Paranas, Samar.

Earlier, an operation in Barangay Buray, also in Paranas town, yielded 3,460 board feet of lumber worth about P129,000. — Miriam Garcia Desacada