Minor shoots dead
playmate over ball
BY PATRICK PANGILINAN

A 14-year-old minor was shot dead by his playmate over an argument in Brgy. Binicuil, Kabankalan, Negros Occidental at about 11:30 a.m. Thursday, the police said.

Michael Ian Buyco died on the spot when he was shot by his playmate, who is also a minor, with a homemade shotgun, known as "sumpak", over an argument over a ball.

SPO1 Walter Ceron of the Kabankalan PNP said they are still investigating the incident.

The police yesterday filed murder and frustrated murder charges against a minor who confessed to the recent killing of an 11-year-old girl, and of stabbing another teenager, in Isabela, Negros Occidental.

The 16-years-old suspect, whose identity is being withheld by the DAILY STAR, gave himself up to the Isabela police on April 24, four days after he stabbed dead Michelle Sitoy, 11, and hacked her elder sister, Letecia, 16, in her neck, in Sitio Magsaysay, Brgy.Mansabla of the town.

Letecia who survived the assault, yesterday accompanied the Isabela police in filing the criminal complaints against the minor suspect before the Provincial Prosecutor's Office of Negros Occidental.

Retired Army general Raymundo Jarque refuted the statement purportedly made by businessman and Pulupandan mayoralty bet Magdaleno Peña that the Supreme Court has not ruled in favor of the accused, in the charges he filed against Jarque and many others in the early 1990s.

"It's practically a false statement," the former Army Negros Island commander said at a press conference last night. These cases have already been dismissed by the Third Division of the SC, Jarque said. Jarque was referring to the charges docketed as Criminal Cases 17282 to 17286, Peña filed before the Sandiganbayan's Fourth Decision, which were dismissed, and subsequently affirmed with modifications by the SC in December, 2004.