ELMAR Gimeda met public school teacher Jhun Leo Pañares at a water refilling station in the City of Naga, southern Cebu more than a year ago. Little did they know, it was the beginning of the end of the teacher’s life at the hands of Gimeda, his alleged lover.
Pañares, 33, believed that he and Gimeda were lovers after they had sex more than once, the latter said in an interview with reporters on Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2022.
“Ingon man siya nga ‘uyab ta.’ So uyab mi ako lang sab siyang gitubay-tubayan ba, pero para kaniya nga dili gyud angayan nga padayonon (He said we ‘we’re lovers.’ So I pretended to be his lover but it was not supposed to continue),” Gimeda said.
Their relationship ended on Saturday night, Oct. 15, with Gimeda’s killing of Pañares inside the Naga Integrated Center for Science Culture and Arts in Barangay Inoburan, City of Naga City.
Though he apologized for stabbing the teacher to death, the 24-year-old Gimeda had reason for doing it, saying he committed homicide in self-defense to restrain the teacher from sexually attacking him.
Gimeda, a native of Calatrava, Negros Occidental, was arrested by the City of Naga police operatives in a follow-up operation in San Carlos City in the same province on Monday night, Oct. 17. He was immediately brought to the City of Naga Police Station in Cebu.
Before the stabbing happened, Gimeda and Pañares had been drinking two one-liter bottles of beer in a room of the school when the victim allegedly sexually harassed him by touching his privates.
Gimeda claimed that he had warned the victim not to continue his sexual advances but the latter allegedly ignored his warning.
He claimed that Pañares told him that he would get angry at him if he would not give in to his advances, prompting Gimeda to grab scissors that he found inside the room and stab the teacher with it.
Pañares, Gimeda said, got a knife and tried to stab him, but the suspect grabbed the weapon from the teacher’s possession during a scuffle.
“Naniguro ko sa akong kaugalingon nga mabuhi ko kay sa akoy mamatay (I had to make sure that I would live rather than get killed),” Gimeda said.
Gimeda showed reporters at the City of Naga Police Station the knife wounds in both his hands sustained during the scuffle.
He said he decided to end the life of Pañares by stabbing him several times as he already panicked.
Gimeda said he got the wallet and motorcycle of the victim and fled towards his hometown.
The teacher’s older brother, Jeepee Pañares, said in an interview with reporters that it is still too early to forgive the suspect as they are still grieving the loss of their loved one.
Jeepee denied allegations by the suspect that his brother had a knife.
More than a year ago, Gimeda said, he worked at a water refilling station in the City of Naga where he became friends with Pañares. Since then, Gimeda said, they had sex on two separate occasions—and the suspect claimed that he received P500 from the victim in their first encounter, and P1,000 in the second.
Lt. Col. Junnel Caadlawon, chief of Naga City Police Station, said they were able to trace Gimeda through the closed-circuit television camera footage of a fast food chain in the city that led them to Negros Occidental in their follow-up operation.
The motorcycle and the wallet of the victim containing P10,000 were recovered from the suspect.
Caadlawon said the suspect will be charged with robbery with homicide. (BBT / TPT)