72-year-old Milagros Lapata (CONTRIBUTED)
Lying supine on the ground and with her hands tied with plastic straw, the body of 72-year-old Milagros Lapata was found soaked in her own blood inside an abandoned house in Barangay Cogon Pardo, Cebu City, on Tuesday morning.
Her head was crushed, shocking neighbors who noticed the victim’s body through the stench of dried blood from the dilapidated structure located about 50 meters away from her residence.
Lapata’s 38-year-old son Jonito, who his sister claimed has been a drug dependent for two decades, was pointed to by a friend as the person behind the gruesome murder, said Senior Insp. Robert Lucernas, chief of the Pardo Police Station.
Jonito, enraged that she refused to give him money, allegedly hit his mother, a hog raiser, with a piece of wood before he finished her off by striking her head with a rock.
After killing her mother in anger, Jonito took her money, P32,000 in cash, to pay off his debt to a supplier of illegal drugs.
Jonito and his alleged accomplice Joshua Ortiz were arrested by the police about 10 hours after they allegedly committed the crime.
Chief Supt. Noli Taliño, director of the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7), immediately ordered the Pardo police to subject the two suspects to a drug test to validate reports that they were into illegal drugs.
The drug test results have yet to be released as of Tuesday evening.
Taliño believed the suspects were under the influence of illegal drugs when they killed the elderly woman.
“This is what illegal drugs do to you. Maybe, the suspects badly needed the money, so they decided to kill the victim,” he said in an interview.
Parricide charges will be filed against Jonito while Ortiz will be facing murder charges before the Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office. The two offenses are non-bailable.
‘It was not me’
In an interview at the Pardo Police Station, Jonito admitted using illegal drugs but denied any involvement in his mother’s slay.
“Mogamit tuod ko pero anaa pa ko sa akong insaktong pangutok. Kahibawo ko sa akong gibuhat. Dili ko makabuhat og ingon niana sa akong ginikanan (I use illegal drugs, but I am still sane. I know what I am doing. I could not do that to my own mother),” he said.
He said he had argued with his mother over money or about his daily allowance, but he said there was no way that he could kill her.
Jonito, the second of Milagros’ five children, who never held a steady job, claimed he was in downtown Cebu City to look for empty plastic bottles to be recycled and sold on Monday evening when his mother was killed.
He said he went home in Barangay Cogon Pardo at around 10 p.m. on Monday and fell asleep.
Jonito said he was surprised when policemen arrived in their house and arrested him at around 8 a.m. on Tuesday.
He accused his friend, Ortiz, of killing his mother. He also denied being indebted to an illegal drug supplier.
“Wala gyud siya nisulti nako nga iya diay nga gipatay ang akong inahan. Kanang utang nga iyang giingon, kang Joshua man na. (He never told me that he killed my mother. And that debt Joshua was talking about, that was his),” Jonito said.
Ortiz, in a separate interview, however, insisted that Jonito threatened to kill him and his family if he would not cooperate in killing the victim.
“Mga alas siete gyud to sa gabii sa dihang among gipatay ang iyang mama. (It was about 7 p.m. when we killed his mother),” he said.
Ortiz said he first asked Milagros, who had a small piggery and a sari-sari store, to go out of their house since someone wanted to buy three pigs.
When the victim went out of the house, he said he and Jonito brought her to a dark section of the village. It was raining when the incident happened.
Jonito, he said, then hit his mother’s head with a piece of wood. The elderly mother immediately lost consciousness.
Ortiz said he and Jonito helped each other to carry the old woman’s body to an abandoned house near the Lapata residence.
“Pag-abot namo niadtong balay, naulian man siya (victim). Giusban og bunal sa ulo ni Jonito ang iyang mama ginamit ang dakong bato (When we arrived at the house, the victim regained consciousness. Jonito then got a huge rock and struck the head of his mother),” he said.
Ortiz claimed his participation in the crime was just to tie the victim’s hands with a plastic straw and to help Jonito carry the body to the abandoned house.
‘Tabang!’
Neighbors heard the voice of a woman screaming “Ginoo, tabang (Lord help me)!” on Monday evening, but they did not mind it, thinking that it came from someone who got drenched by the rain, according to Lucernas.
When the police came, they found the blood-soaked body of Milagros covered with a blanket and a sack.
“Bun-og kaayo na ang mama ni Jonito kay iya man nang kulatahon kon dili siya tagaan og kwarta. Sa buntag, nangayo gani na siya og kwarta. Gitagaan siya sa iyang mama pero wala niya dawata kay kuwang kuno (Jonito would beat up his mother every time she refused to give him money. On Monday morning, Jonito asked for money. His mother gave him money, but he refused to take it because it was not enough),” Ortiz said.
Jonito’s younger sister Cherrie, 35, said they were looking for their mother since Monday evening.
She said Ortiz, who had been helping Milagros take care of the pigs, went to their house and told them to deliver three pigs to a mountain barangay in Talisay City as allegedly instructed by their mother.
“Nitext kuno si mama. Nagduda na mi kay dili man kamao mo-text si mama. Gituyok-tuyok man mi niya. So nagpablotter mi sa barangay and then sa police (Joshua told us that mama instructed him through text to bring the pigs to Talisay City. We became suspicious because we knew mama didn’t know how to text. Joshua deceived us. So we immediately reported the incident to the barangay and then to the police),” Cherrie said in an interview.
Cherrie and her husband then brought Ortiz to the Pardo Police Station after he made some alibis when asked about Milagros’ whereabouts.
When investigated by the police, Ortiz admitted that he assisted Jonito in killing Milagros.
Lucernas said Jonito got mad at his mother since the latter did not give him money last Monday.
“Jonito was actually afraid that he might get killed by the person he was indebted to. That was why he was pressured to get money from his mother,” he said.
Sister’s tale
Aside from using illegal drugs, Lucernas said Jonito was peddling shabu (methamphetamine).
Cherrie said her brother has been using shabu and nubain, a regulated pain killer, for about two decades.
She said Jonito underwent drug rehabilitation but still continued using illegal drugs.
She said she and their family vowed to pursue the charges against Jonito and Ortiz.
“Salbahis. Gigapos nila si mama. Giposposan pa gyud. Luoy kaayo si mama. (Brutes. They did not only tie up my mother, they also struck her head. Mother was so pitiful),” said Cherrie who was waiting for their father, a retired soldier, to arrive from Iloilo.
“Iya (Jonito) man gyud na layogon si mama. Magsiyagit intawon na si mama. Anad na siya pagpangayo og kuwarta. Magsiyagit intawon na si mama. Kon dili mohatag si mama, iya na e-harass. Kon dili, mangawat na siya sa tindahan. Pero wala mi nag-expect nga iyang patyon si mama),” she said.
(Jonito would often maul our mother. Mama could just scream in pain. He frequently asked for money. If mama refused to give him money, he would harass her or he would steal items from our store. But we did not expect that he would kill our mother),” she added.