Suspects in Bersamin slay ready to reveal mastermind

CAMP BADO DANGWA, Benguet – A suspect in the killing of Abra Rep. Luis "Chito" Bersamin who was nabbed by Cordillera police in Baras, Rizal on Oct. 20 is very cooperative and "ready to sing," police said.

This, as another suspect – former La Paz, Abra vice mayor Freddie Dupo, was also arrested the next day also by Cordillera police in Antipolo City.

Suspect Sonny Taculao, 41, who was nabbed in Baras, was tagged as one of the three men who allegedly drove the getaway motorcycle right after the killing of Bersamin.

Taculao was cornered by lawmen in an operation at a farm about 8 a.m. that day, said Chief Supt. Eugene Martin, police director of Cordillera.

The suspect did not resist arrest although he had a Cal. 45 pistol when he was arrested, Martin said.

He added operatives of the Regional Intelligence Division of the Cordillera Police Office under Supt. Jess Cambay were armed with an arrest warrant issued by Judge Lydia Layosa of the Quzon City Regional Trial Court when they swooped down on the farm in Baras following a tip that the suspect was hiding there.

Taculao was immediately brought to the police regional headquarters here for interrogation.

"We are still in the process of interrogating him and he (Taculao) is very cooperative in the course of investigation and the way he answers queries by our investigators may lead to the solution of the killing of the solon," Martin said.

A police official here lamented that a top Rizal police official grabbed the credit for the apprehension of Taculao, saying it was the Cordillera policemen who really planned the operation and arrested the suspect in Rizal.

Informed of the arrest of Taculao, former governor Vicente Valera said that he does not know Talucao.

Meanwhile, former La Paz, Abra vice mayor Freddie Dupo, another suspect in the Bersamin killing was collared by joint elements of the Cordillera and Rizal police as he was coming down from the mountain where he had gone into hiding after escaping the police dragnet during the arrest of fellow suspect Taculao that day.

A source said Dupo did not resist when cornered in Baras town at 9.am. on Oct .21.

“He was hungry and tired. He committed a grave mistake of going down the mountain, apparently thinking that policemen have stopped efforts to get him,” a police official said.

Dupo appeared before the PNP chief Director General Avelino Razon Jr. in a press briefing on October 23 at Camp Crame.

In his confession before Cordillera police director Martin, Taculao said it was Dupo who brought him to their mountain lair in Baras town several days after the killing of Bersamin and his bodyguard, SPO1 Adelfo Ortega.

“Taculao had been very cooperative with us, he was the one who tipped off Dupo’s return in Rizal that’s why we were able to arrest him,” said Rizal Provincial Director Senior Supt. Freddie Panen.

Panen, however, refused to identify the suspect mastermind pending investigation.

It was Dupo, according to Taculao, who acted as the middleman of his group with the mastermind in Bersamin’s slay.

Dupo also gave him the P20,000 to purchase a motorcycle he used in shadowing Bersamin in Metro Manila.

The motorcycle, Taculao said, was registered in the name of Sgt. Rufino Panday, who confessed complicity in the killing but later retracted his statement.

Taculao pointed to a certain Gerry as the triggerman.

Martin ordered a massive manhunt against Gerry and other personalities identified by Taculao as cohorts in the ambush-slay of Bersamin.

Taculao said Dupo gave him P30,000 for his role as a lookout in Bersamin’s ambush-slay.

Dupo, Taculao and former Constable Salvador Barbosa were charged before the sala of Judge Lydia Barbosa of the Quezon City regional trial court for the murders of Bersamin and Ortega.

Martin said Dupo was in the vicinity of the safe-house during the raid.

However, he escaped after seeing the approaching riders.

Dupo is now undergoing tactical interrogation.

His confession and that of Taculao will be used in pinning down the mastermind in the murders of Bersamin and Ortega. – With a report from Mar T. Supnad