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Cops drop kidnap-for-ransom
angle in UST student’s slay
By Jerome Aning
Inquirer News Service
MANILA police
are now certain that University of Santo Tomas student Mark Chua,
whose body was fished out of the Pasig River on Sunday, did not die
in the hands of a kidnap-for-ransom gang.
Chua, 19, a
second year mechanical engineering student and resident of LPL
Mansions on Leviste Street, Salcedo Village, Makati City, was
abducted but he was not meant to be ransomed, said Chief Insp.
Juanito Taluban, head of the Western Police District’s homicide
section.
Chua and
another student, Romulo Yumul, exposed anomalies in the Reserved
Officers Training Corps at UST last year.
But Taluban
refused to tie up Chua’s death to last year’s scandal at UST where
the victim, a former ROTC cadet officer, accused officials of the
UST Department of Military Science and Tactics of bribery and
extortion.
Taluban also
denied earlier reports that police had tagged as suspects the
school’s former ROTC commandant and officers who were dismissed as a
result of Chua’s whistle-blowing.
The police
official said that angle is still being investigated.
Chua and Yumul
filed a complaint with the Defense Department’s Regional Community
Defense Group, claiming that their commandant, Maj. Demy Tejares,
and other officials were collecting P1,500 from students who want to
be exempted from ROTC course.
Their story
appeared in the Feb. 21 issue of the campus paper, The
Varsitarian.
Tejares and
other ROTC officials, who vehemently denied the accusations, were
relieved early this year from their posts.
Chua’s body was
fished out of the Pasig River behind the Bureau of Immigration
building Sunday morning.
The decomposing
body was wrapped in brown carpet while the head was wrapped with
cloth and packaging tape. The hands and feet were tied with
shoelaces.
Autopsy results
showed Mark died of suffocation due to the tape on his head, which
covered his nostrils and mouth.
Police said it
is also possible the suspects did not intend to kill the
victim.
Taluban said
Chua was last seen around 4 p.m. of March 15 at the ROTC office in
UST. But the police official said it did not mean the victim was
abducted there.
At dawn on
March 16, Chua’s father Welson said they received a call from men
who claimed to have kidnapped Mark. The callers reportedly demanded
a P3-million ransom.
The family
received another call later asking them if they had the money but
Welson said they did not have it. The person on the other end of the
line said, "No money, no son," and hung up.
There were no
further calls.
In an
interview, Welson believed the calls were a ruse to confuse the
investigators.
Taluban agreed:
"Why would the abductors not make a follow-up call to further
negotiate if they really intended to collect ransom?"
After a long
search, Welson found his son’s body at the Tres Amigos Funeral Homes
in Paco, identifying Mark with the ROTC dogtag he was
wearing.
Welson was
quoted by The Varsitarian as saying his son and Yumul each received
death threats during the investigation of their
complaint.
"We know who
did it (but we have to get (sufficient) evidence," Welson said. "I
hope his death won’t make everyone afraid. He paid for it with his
life, I hope it meant something."
Police are now
trying to locate Yumul who reportedly went into hiding after
learning of Chua’s death. | 
Sat. Mar. 24, 2001, Philippines
