2 charged in slay of UPLB student

MANILA, Philippines - Police yesterday filed rape with homicide charges against a tricycle driver and a security guard for last Tuesday’s killing of a 19-year-old BS Computer Science student of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) in Laguna.

The Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) filed the charges against tricycle driver Percival de Guzman and security guard Lester Ivan Rivera before the Laguna prosecutor’s office.

CIDG chief Director Samuel Pagdilao Jr. declared the killing of Given Grace Cebanico, a resident of Binangonan, Rizal, solved with De Guzman and Rivera now in police custody.

The body of Cebanico, a stay-in student at the 5th of September Mansion dormitory in Barangay Batong Malake in Los Baños, was found last Tuesday at a grassy lot along the Institute of Plant Breeding Road in nearby Barangay Tuntungin.

She was shot and stabbed in the back, her mouth gagged with tape, and her hands tied from behind.

After being informed of the discovery of the UP student’s body, Senior Superintendent Edwin Jose Nemenzo, chief of the CIDG Region 4-A, coordinated with the Los Baños police for the conduct of a parallel probe.

Last Wednesday, Nemenzo said he received a phone call from a barangay official that a 16-year-old male teenager was being threatened by a man involved in the killing of Cebanico.

The teenager told Nemenzo that he saw De Guzman and a companion seizing the UP student along Diamond Street in Barangay Batong Malake Tuesday night.

While the CIDG investigators were taking the teenager’s statement at the barangay hall of Batong Malake, village chairman Nilo Lapiz received a phone call that De Guzman, apparently drunk, was making trouble in a billiard hall.

After the troublemaker was arrested and brought to the barangay hall, the teenager positively identified him as the one who he saw snatching Cebanico. 

Investigators later recovered from De Guzman an iPhone which when they switched on, a picture of Cebanico appeared on the screen.

De Guzman’s arrest resulted in the identification of Rivera, who surrendered yesterday to police authorities in Floridablanca, Pampanga.

Senior Superintendent Edgardo Tiñio, Pampanga police director, said Rivera sought refuge in his grandfather’s house in Barangay Palmayo, Floridablanca town after the incident.

Upon learning of the crime, Rivera’s grandfather Renato, 50, reported it to Palmayo barangay chief Alfonso Dizon who, in turn, informed police authorities.

The elder Rivera said his grandson used a caliber .38 revolver owned by his security agency in killing Cebanico. He, however, denied the rape. – With Ed Amoroso, Ric Sapnu, Mike Frialde