ILOILO City – According to Police Corporal Joseph Andrew Joven of the Iloilo City Police Office (ICPO), one of the four suspects charged in the killing of businessman Delfin Britanico and call center agent Allain Muller on Jan. 19, 2020, he had received death threats.
Now in the custody of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Region 6 where he surrendered late night on June 5, Joven expressed intention to become a witness, and sought protection.
NBI sources told Panay News Joven disclosed to them more information about the killings and that threats to his life prompted him to surface.
The NBI central office’s Death Investigation Division charged Joven with murder and theft on May 29 before the Department of Justice together with Police Corporal Jerry Villanueva assigned at the Regional Personnel Holding and Accounting Unit of the Police Regional Office 6 (PRO-6) and two other unidentified persons.
It was President Rodrigo Duterte who ordered the NBI to take the lead in the probe after his help was sought by Britanico’s father, former assemblyman Salvador “Buddy” Britanico.
In the complaint it filed, NBI tagged Joven as the driver of the getaway vehicle used in the killings and also the one who rented the vehicle from a car rental company.
NBI sources said Joven’s statements would still be vetted.
Joven surfaced Friday night last week after over two months of being AWOL (absent without official leave) from the ICPO. He had not reported after failing to undergo a drug test in March required of all city policemen.
Villanueva, on the other hand, is currently under restrictive custody at the PRO-6.
Both police officers face administrative charges, too, at the PRO-6’s Internal Affairs Service.
Police Brigadier General Rene Pamuspusan, regional police director, said Joven’s “submission to authority will finally lead to the fast resolution of the case.”
The two other persons charged remained unidentified and at large.
“In the meeting with the President, I did not actually specify that it would be the NBI…I simply requested the President to please see to it that the investigation will be fair and thorough. The President (then) issued an instruction that Manila NBI should be the one to conduct the investigation,” according to Assemblyman Britanico.
Thesuccessivekillings – Muller first then Britanico – were initially thought as separate incidents. The NBI, however, discovered they were related by circumstance.
According to NBI officer-in-charge Eric Distor, the same vehicle – a Mitsubishi Adventure – was seen in both killings, and that witnesses further saw one of the suspects taking something from Britanico.
The NBI traced the vehicle to a car rental. The car rental owner told the NBI that Joven confessed to him “the Adventure was used by his group as getaway vehicle in killing Muller and Britanico.”
“After killing Muller, they stopped at a vacant lot in (Barangay) Nabitasan, La Paz to strip off the white stickers from the Adventure. Britanico saw and confronted them so they shot Britanico to death,” read part of the NBI statement announcing its findings and the eventual filing of charges./PN
