Teeners on a rampage

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines  – Two killings involving young suspects aged 16 and 13 have shocked authorities, amid a spate of other violent incidents involving minors recently. 

In this city, a 43-year-old businessman was stabbed dead by a 16-year-old boy who saw him with his girlfriend walking near the public plaza Wednesday night, police said.

Chief Inspector Ulysses Ortiz, Station 1 commander, said businessman Jimmy Uy sustained stab wounds in the neck and abdomen and was declared dead on arrival at the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital (CLMMRH).

Uy owned a rice retail store at the city’s Central Market, Ortiz said.

Investigation showed that Uy was walking with the suspect’s supposed girlfriend along Cuadra Street. The 16-year-old approached the two and attacked Uy, who tried to grab the knife from him but failed, Ortiz said.

The teenager was arrested by Ortiz’s men on Lacson Street Thursday night.

The suspect is now confined at the CLMMRH for a cut on his palm, while homicide charges are being readied against him, Ortiz said.

In another incident, a 13-year-old boy gave himself up to the Women’s and Children’s Complaints Desk (WCCD) of the Bacolod City police the other day and admitted killing a nine-year-old girl, whose decomposing body was found near a creek in a sugarcane plantation in Purok Rose, Barangay Cabug last week.

The boy said the victim followed him to the sugarcane plantation Thursday morning and threw stones at him. Angered, he said he pushed her into the creek and then beat her up.

The 13-year-old also bashed the girl’s head with a stone and pulled down her shorts and underwear before leaving, but did not rape her.

He owned up to the killing, saying he was angry, too, at the girl’s elder sister.

Inspector Jovy Cabcaban, WCCD chief, said they have endorsed the boy to the Social Welfare Development Center.