BY RUBY P. SILUBRICO and IAN PAUL CORDERO
ILOILO City – An eight-year-old girl from Dingle, Iloilo was hacked to death in Barangay Sarapan, Passi City. She was believed to have been raped, too.
The girl was found dead at around 9:30 p.m. on Monday at a sugarcane plantation.
According to Superintendent Norberto Delmas, Passi City police chief, the girl was half-naked and her body bore multiple hack wounds.
A suspect had been identified and arrested – 39-year-old Harlie Cordada of Barangay Sarapan. He was a distant relative of the victim.
An autopsy would be conducted to ascertain if the girl was indeed raped, said Delmas.
The girl, an elementary pupil in the town of Dingle, Iloilo, was visiting an aunt in Barangay Sarapan which was then celebrating its annual fiesta, said Delmas.
Late afternoon on Monday she could no longer be found. Worried relatives started looking for her.
“They sought our help when their search proved futile. We found her covered with grasses inside a nearby sugarcane plantation,” said Delmas.
Investigators believed a bolo was used to hack the girl.
Suspect Cordada was taken to the Passi City police station after cops spotted bloodstains on his t-shirt and shorts. But they failed to recover any bolo.
“He denied killing and raping the girl but we believe our evidence is strong,” said Delmas.
Cordada claimed the bloodstains on his shirt and shorts were from his own wounds but did not explain how he sustained the wounds, the police chief added.
Cordada would be charged with rape with homicide, said Delmas.
If Cordada’s mother Hermelita were to be believed, her son was mentally disturbed.
“He got hit by a vehicle when he was 17 years old and sustained a head injury. He would act strangely at times like talking to himself,” she said.
Sometimes Cordada would also scream that somebody was out to kill him, said Hermelita.
“Sang nag intra sya ka inom-inom daw naglala na gid siya. Gasala-sala siya,” the mother added.
That Monday morning, Hermelita said, her husband asked their son to harvest some bananas nearby.
“I saw him and the girl talking,” she said./PN
