CEBU, Philippines – Personnel from Pardo Police Station yesterday afternoon filed before the Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor complaints of parricide against Jonieto Lapatha, 38, over the death of his 72-year-old mother, Milagros, last Monday.
Lapatha's alleged accomplice, Joshua Ortiz, 18, has also been charged with murder.
Senior Police Officer 4 Roger Nedamo of Pardo Police Station said the suspects will undergo an inquest proceeding today to determine the validity of their arrests.
He added that they were also seeking a lawyer for Ortiz for his extrajudicial confession.
Under the law, a confession made outside the court must be made in the presence of a legal counsel, otherwise, it cannot be admitted as valid evidence in court.
Milagros was allegedly bludgeoned to death by her son after she refused to give him P32,000 to pay off his debt to an illegal drug pusher.
Lapatha was allegedly high on drugs when the incident took place in an abandoned house in Sitio La Purisima Barangay Cogon-Pardo, Cebu City.
On the same night when the incident happened, Ortiz was taken by his relatives to the police station after they became suspicious that he was hiding something but he only told police everything that happened after Lapatha, who is his uncle, was brought in yesterday morning.
According to Ortiz, on the night of the incident, Lapatha, asked him to help out with something he thought would involve manual labor.
He said Lapatha asked him to bring his mother to a street corner where he and another man waited.
After Ortiz brought her there, Lapatha allegedly asked for money to pay his debt but she refused and that was when Lapatha attacked her.
Lapatha allegedly knocked his mother unconscious after hitting her with a 2x2 piece of wood on the head then took money from her.
Ortiz said Lapatha then ordered him to tie her hands with 'straw' (plastic packing rope).
He said he initially refused, but Lapatha threatened to kill him and his whole family.
Ortiz said he was made to help Lapatha carry Milagros to the abandoned house where she allegedly regained consciousness.
Ortiz also said that after the incident, the suspect handed the money to the unidentified man waiting outside the abandoned house.
Lapatha remains mum on the allegations hurled against him. —/JBB (FREEMAN)