Driver hunted for slay of Tetangco brod, two others

By George Trillo

ANGELES CITY– Police are looking for a driver from Nueva Ecija in connection with the killing of a brother of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Amando Tetangco and two others here last June 2, after he was identified as the last man who one of the victims talked to on the phone on the night of the murders.

Senior Supt. Wendy Rosario, who heads the task force probing the crime, said the man used to be a driver of somebody who used to play poker with businessman Florencio Yap who was killed together with Tetangco’s brother Rene and Yap’s aide Dennis Guinto.

Rosario said the driver, whom he declined to identify, reportedly owed Yap some P60,000.

The man’s cell phone number was the last one which Yap had dialed on his phone.
Rosario said a woman identified the number as belonging to the man who was her friend. However, the man has apparently junked the SIM card bearing that number, he added.

“It would seem that the driver was in Nueva Ecija when Yap called him up. It was the last call Yap made at about 7:51 p.m. on the night they were murdered,” Rosario said.

The victims’ bodies were found in Yap’s Ford Expedition abandoned in an empty lot along Friendship Avenue in Barangay Pampang here.

They were apparently killed elsewhere but their killer drove their bodies to the site to confuse the police.

The victims were on their way to King’s Poker and Sports Club here when they where killed sometime between 7:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. last June 2.

They were supposed to play poker with former Bacolor mayor Buddy Dungca and defeated mayoral candidate Dinan Labung at King’s Club, but they never reached their destination.

Rosario, however, said the driver was not employed by either Dungca or Labung.

“The driver used to work for another person with whom Yap had played poker for about a year before the murders,” he said.

Rosario said the driver might have lured the victims, who were already driving to King’s Club, to another destination as part of his murder plot.