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Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Body of Asturias victim found in Bantayan
By Mia E. Abellana Sun.Star Staff Reporter
With Karlon N. Rama & Jeanette P. Malinao
Five days after he was tortured and thrown into a river, the body of 11-year-old Al Quirante Miano surfaced six towns away from where he was killed.
Fisherman Eduardo Jamile was in his banca near the Cansanting Coral Reef, two kilometers away from the shoreline of Barangay Lipayran, Bantayan, Cebu when he noticed a floating blue sack at 7:30 a.m. Sunday.
Dead pet
Jamile thought the sack contained a dead pet like a dog, but reconsidered when he saw the size of the body inside the sack.
Without opening the sack, Jamile then decided to report what he saw to barangay officials.
PO1 Bernie Batarilan of the Bantayan Police Station said they were already aware of the incident that shocked residents of Asturias town in northwestern Cebu, as this made the headlines in some newspapers.
Batarilan said they read about how Miano was beaten up, given electric shocks, made to eat rice mixed with chicken dung and to drink rain water and then forced into a sack before he was thrown into the Ginabasan River, which flowed through Barangay New Bago, Asturias.
Miano received this punishment for stealing P70 from 17-year-old Romeo (real name withheld).
Charge filed
A case for kidnapping and homicide was filed yesterday against Romeo.
Provincial Prosecutor Jane Petralba, in an interview, said the case was endorsed to the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Toledo City.
“We have scheduled a case conference within the week to discuss new evidence. If there is basis, we might move to amend the information. But we did allege the torture,” she said.
Romeo surrendered to the town police last Friday.
He has owned up to the crime, but Romeo may still get off with a relatively lighter penalty if he, through counsel, invokes the provisions of Republic Act 9344 or the Juvenile Justice Welfare Act of 2006.
The statute took effect only last May.
Section 5 (b) of the new law disallows any minor from being slapped the penalty of life imprisonment, without the possibility of release, or death.
The law exempts a child under 15 years of age from any criminal liability. Those above the age of 15 but under 18 will be criminally liable only if it is proven that the criminal act was done with discernment.
A provision nevertheless allows the commitment of a young offender to jail if the “young person has committed a violent offence.”
Miano’s parents Virginia and Wilhelm left Asturias yesterday morning and arrived in Bantayan to look at the body found in the sack.
Virginia, in a telephone interview, said that if she had her way, she would have her son’s body returned to Asturias because Bantayan was too far.
She said their family members were all buried at the Sta. Lucia Cemetery.
Temporary burial
However, social worker Zenaida Cortes, who was sent by Asturias Mayor Leticia Orozco, said this might be difficult because this would mean they would have to stay in the island town much longer.
She said she would have to convince the family to just let the boy be buried in the town until all that is left of his remains are bones and that they can return and bring these back to Asturias.
PO1 Batarilan, who was one of the first policemen who responded to the alarm, said Miano’s skin was coming off.
Municipal Health Officer Liza Rivera examined the body and ordered that it be buried right away because it was already decomposing.
However, Rivera told police that it was clear the boy was tortured because he was biting his tongue.
Miano was also crouched inside the blue sack.
Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia will visit Asturias today to hand out P5,000 as burial benefit for Miano’s family.
The governor will also hold a medical mission in Barangay Poblacion, Asturias, which she said is not one of Cebu’s progressive municipalities.
She will also distribute financial assistance to the barangays for various projects.
Garcia said she is coursing her assistance to the barangays because she does not want the people to suffer because of politics.
Description
Mayor Orozco ran under the party of Garcia’s rival in the last elections.
Before they left for Bantayan, officials of Asturias town spoke with Dr. Rivera through radio Sunday night to get a description of the body.
The description matched the way Miano was last seen.
Even Romeo confirmed that the description given was the same.
Miano was placed in a blue rice sack tied with a black wire. He was also naked.
Virginia said she never stopped praying that they would soon find her son’s body.
“Gidungong sa Ginoo ang akong pag-ampo (God heard my prayers),” she told Sun.Star Cebu.
After much discussion, the Miano family and Cortes decided not to touch the body, which was already buried at the town’s cemetery.
This was after they learned that the Asturias police is planning to ask help from the National Bureau of Investigation to exhume the body and conduct an autopsy.
Cortes also asked the people of Asturias to refrain from blaming Virginia for her son’s death.
Residents have blamed Virginia of neglect, saying if she did not abandon her son to work at the woodcraft shop, the incident might not have happened.
There were also rumors that she was the one who ordered the boy to steal the money so she could play a card game locally called tong-its.
Virginia said there was no truth to such claims.
She said she would never encourage her son to steal and that she had not been negligent as it was her son’s choice not to return home.
Cortes asked the public to take pity on the Miano family because they were already pained by their loss.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (June 20, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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