BAGUIO CITY—The City Government here has offered a P100,000 cash reward for whoever could help police investigators arrest the three knife-wielding individuals who brutally murdered a 16-year-old student of the Pines City National High School on Tuesday morning along Labsan Street in Kayang Extension.
Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan said the reward will be taken from the savings of the local government to help resolve immediate one of the city’s most celebrated crimes and has again tainted the city’s peace and order campaign.
“We are saddened by the brutal murder of an innocent young student, who was simply on his way to school at the time of the commission of the crime. We appeal to possible witnesses to help our investigators ascertain the identity of the suspects so they will be made to answer for the crime they committed,” Domogan stressed.
The Baguio City Police Office, despite its sudden change of leadership, needs to work double time to solve this case, the mayor added.
Kenneth Pacheco Velasco, a Grade 10 student of PCNHS, decided to take a shorter route to school when he was waylaid by the knife-wielding suspects, who allegedly took his cellphone, tablet and P200 in pocket money before stabbing him at least 40 times, mostly on his neck, that caused his death.
Velasco’s parents described him as a responsible individual who helps with the household chores and vowed to be the breadwinner of the family once he finished his studies, considering his father is still recovering from a stroke.
Domogan underscored the cooperation of the public in such cases as important because witnesses must provide investigators with the proper descriptions of the suspects that could guide them to their arrest.
The mayor could not understand why the suspects killed the student “when their primary intention was to take his personal belongings and valuables.”
The incident created fear among students making use of the shorter route leading to the PCNHS, Domogan said, thus barangay officials and law enforcers must make sure of the constant presence of uniformed and non-uniformed policemen in the area.