FOR a job well done, it’s not difficult as it should be as ‘morale booster’ so to speak for Malabon City Mayor Antolin “Lenlen” Oreta III to hail the local police for the quick resolution of the Feb. 5 grizzly robbery-killing of a City Hall employee and his son following the holding of two men said to be responsible of the crime.
First to be held was Anthony Sernechez, 26, a resident in Barangay 8, Caloocan City, who was reportedly forced to turn himself over to his barangay watchman-uncle when Malabon lawmen, after coordinating with the Caloocan police, raided his house but they failed to get him. Supt. Ferdie del Rosario, assistant police chief for operations and head of the station investigation and detection management bureau, immediately turned over Sernechez to Mayor Oreta and Malabon Chief of Police Senior Supt. Severino Abad, Jr.
On Saturday (Feb. 8), Sernechez’ cohort, Aries Santos, 30, surrendered to the Malabon mayor as he admitted to be part of the killing of the victims Felizardo Coralde, 47; and 19-year-old son Albert, a 2nd year engineering student.
Santos and Sernechez had reportedly decided to come out and surrender after they learned that the police meant business and were maximizing its resources to get them and hold them responsible for the crime.
A civil registrar record officer at the City Hall, Coralde and his son were found by their relatives hogtied and their throats slit around early morning in their respective bedrooms in Vidal Street, Barangay Ibaba.
Vilma, wife of Felizardo Coralde, told investigators that some of their things were found scattered on the floor and some items – a tablet, a laptop, several cellular phones and pieces of jewelry – were missing. The stolen valuables were, however, all recovered from the possession of Santos when he surrendered to the mayor. Prior to the discovery of the grizzly robbery-killing, police said Coralde’s daughter, Catherine heard a commotion at her father’s room around 2:30 a.m. but did not bother to check.
Alarmed by the incident, Mayor Oreta put up a P100,000 cash reward to anyone that can provide the police vital information leading to the swift resolution of the crime.
Lauding Sr. Supt. Abad and his men for a job well done, Oreta ordered the police to finally resolve the case by establishing who between the two suspects killed the victims as they were pointing at each other as the one responsible. Santos, it turned out, was a relative of the victims and he could have an ax to grind.