Sack of rice leads police to Bersamin slay suspects

A sack of rice led the Cordillera police to the whereabouts of two suspects in the slaying of Abra Rep. Luis Bersamin in Rizal province.

Cordillera police director Chief Superintendent Eugene Martin said he sent his men to Sta. Cruz town in Ilocos Sur hoping to catch former La Paz vice mayor Freddie Dupo and his cousin, Sunny Taculao, while visiting their relatives there following the ambush-slaying of Bersamin in front Mt. Carmel Church in Quezon City last Dec. 16.

“I sent two teams of crack police operatives to Sta. Cruz town to monitor the suspects’ relatives. They stayed there for several months but Dupo and Taculao and the other suspects failed to show up,” Martin told The STAR.

Unknown to Martin, right after the killing of Bersamin, Dupo and Taculao had gone into hiding in Baras, Rizal. It was in this remote town where they were arrested one after the other last weekend.

In the mountains of Baras town, Dupo and Taculao engaged in kaingin (slash-and-burn farming) and took odd jobs in construction projects to support themselves.

During tactical interrogation, Taculao claimed Dupo received every month a sack of rice and other foodstuff and P10,000 in cash. Dupo told Taculao that the money and supplies came from their relatives in Sta. Cruz.

All the while, Martin said Dupo was also talking through a cellular phone with Martin and Abra Gov. Eustaquio Bersamin to arrange his surrender.

While in hiding in Rizal, Dupo said he was confident that the Cordillera police would not be able to trace him and Taculao there.

However, Martin said an informant walked into his office in Camp Dangwa in La Trinidad, Benguet in the last week of September and told him that the relatives of the two Bersamin’s slay suspects had been sending food supplies to somebody in Rizal.

Martin called the attention of Superintendent Jess Cambay, Cordillera police intelligence chief, and ordered him to look into the fresh information.

“I immediately pulled out my men from Sta. Cruz to verify the new information and luckily we hit pay dirt this time,” Martin said.

Cambay said a nine-member police team headed by Inspector Reynaldo Viloria tailed last Oct. 1 a bus bound for Cubao, Quezon City loaded with a sack of rice addressed to a certain Cesar Buen of Baras, Rizal.

When the bus came to a stop in its terminal in Cubao, a man picked up the sack of rice and loaded it into a passenger jeepney plying the Baras-Cubao route.

The Cordillera policemen continued tailing the sack of rice until it was delivered to a hut in the mountains of Sitio Pinugay at the boundary of Baras town and Antipolo City. The hut turned out to be Buen’s.

After the success of their surveillance, Cambay said his team waited for the issuance of an arrest warrant against Dupo, Taculao and another suspect, Constable Salvador Barbosa, who reportedly died recently due to an illness.

After Judge Lydia Layosa of the Quezon City regional trial court (RTC) issued an arrest warrant against Dupo and Taculao last week, Cambay said his team tried to serve it on Oct. 19.

“Our team and the suspects met face-to-face. Sensing danger, Dupo transferred his cane to his left and prepared to pull out his handgun. The team withdrew from the area to prevent a big number of casualties because there were a lot of people gathered around Dupo and Taculao at the time,” Cambay said.

Cambay junked the idea of seeking augmentation from the Cordillera police, which was costly, and instead coordinated with the Rizal police for help from the Provincial Mobile Group.

At 4 a.m. last Saturday, Cambay’s men swooped down on the hut and found Taculao, who yielded a caliber .45 automatic pistol, two cell phones and four SIM cards.

When interviewed by The STAR in Camp Crame, Dupo said he was only in his shorts and barefoot when he saw the approaching policemen. He fled to the mountains.

At nightfall, Dupo said he went to a hut to borrow a T-shirt and a pair of slippers. He said he failed to catch sleep Saturday night thinking that the police might catch up with him.

Dupo was arrested Sunday at a creek in Lower Kilingan, Pinugay, Baras, when he made the mistake of returning to the hut.

“I was trying to borrow a cell phone to call Gen. Martin so I could surrender peacefully,” said Dupo when asked why he went down the mountain.

Martin said Dupo is also involved in the ambush-slaying of La Paz Mayor Israel Mark Bernos last January.