Girl's killer faces raps

The police yesterday filed murder charges against the suspect in the killing of a 9-year-old girl in Bacolod City last month.

PO1 Donnie Garcia of Police Station 3 said Gerry Douglas Patoreto was charged at the City Prosecutor's Office for the death of Roselyn Elumba.

Patoreto is still at large, although, and the Bacolod City and Negros Occidental Police offices have been searching for him, since Elumba's body was discovered by her mother, Rosie, in a sugarcane field in Brgy. Banago, in the city, on November 23.

Garcia had earlier said that they could not file a rape charge against Patoreto because National Bureau of Investigation medico legal officer, Dr. Nicasio Butin, was not able to determine whether she had been sexually-molested as the tissues needed for the procedure had already decomposed.

The girl's family is not planning to request for an artist's sketch of Patoreto, Garcia said.*PP

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Charges lodged
vs. drug courier

Robert Diaz, 20, was charged with violating Sections 11 and 12 of Republic Act 9165, or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, at the City Prosecutor's Office Wednesday, Police Station 2 commander, Inspector Rie Gumban said.

Diaz, of Purok Sigay, Brgy. 2, in Bacolod, was arrested by Police Station 2 officers PO2's Ronilo Molato, Richard Delasa, and PO1 Jerome Javier at a gasoline station at Lacson Street, in the city, at about 11 p.m. Monday.

A sachet of shabu and an improvised tooter were among the things recovered from him, police reports said.

A security guard informed the police that Diaz and four other persons were acting “suspiciously” at one of the comfort rooms of the business outfit, police records showed.

Diaz, who admitted to being a courier for drug dealers in Purok Sigay for a year now, had earlier claimed that the officers who apprehended him, did not declare the full amount of cash recovered from him.

The police and a media practitioner who witnessed the arrest, however, said that Diaz could just have made up the story to get back at the officers.*PP

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Former rebel surrenders
another firearm: military

A rebel returnee in southern Negros who surrendered four high-powered firearms to the military, is expected to receive more than P100,000 in financial assistance under the government's Balik-Baril program, the military said.

Lt. Col. Romeo Basco, 61 st Infantry Battalion commander, said a certain “Ka Jun Jun” whose identity is being withheld for security reasons, surrendered on Tuesday another M-16 assault rifle, bringing to four the number of firearms he had surrendered to them since Sept. 4.

Records of the 61 st IB show that Ka Jun Jun has turned over three M-16 rifles and a carbine.

The government is paying P35,000 for every M-16 or M-14 rifle surrendered by a rebel returnee, as provided in its Balik-Baril program.

Military records indicate that nine high-powered firearms have been surrendered to the 61 st IB by four rebel returnees since August.

Basco said the M-16 rifle surrendered by Ka Jun Jun was fully operational and its qualified him for the Balik Baril program.

Ka Jun Jun used to operate in a southern Negros guerilla front of the NPA.

Another rebel returnee identified only as “Ka Miso” also surrendered an M-16 assault rifle to the 3 rd Infantry Division in Camp Macario Peralta, Jamindan, Capiz last week.*GPB

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