Abreu, Nicolle Gail I.

BS-PSYCHOLOGY 1106

CW-MA-05

UST student gets death

- Bebot Sison Jr., Cecille Suerte Felipe

A Manila court handed down the death penalty to a University of Sto. Tomas (UST) student for killing fellow
student Mark Welson Chua, who had exposed corruption in the UST-Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) two
years ago.

The victim’s parents, Welson and Amet Chua, their daughter Charmaine, relatives and friends cried as a guilty
verdict against accused Arnulfo Aparri Jr. was read in an open court by a staffer of Manila Judge Romulo Lopez of
Regional Trial Court Branch 18.

But for the mother, the conviction of only one of the killers is not enough to compensate for the death of her only
son.

"While this is a good start, I won’t be at peace until other killers and the mastermind are arrested and
prosecuted," she said.

The mother said she is hoping for immediate arrest of three others, namely Paul Joseph Tan, Eduardo Tabrilla and
Michael Von Rainard Mangangbao, who are now subject of warrant of arrest issued by Lopez.

The father called on the public to help them locate the trio so justice can fully served.

He thanked the media, including Philippine Star publisher Max Soliven for helping his family in their struggle for
justice.

Lopez ordered Aparri to indemnify the heirs of the victim P50,000. The judge noted that Chua’s parents did not
seek civil damages.

The conviction will automatically be elevated to the Supreme Court for review. Aparri will be sent to the National
Bilibid Prisons.

Lopez added that charges against Tan, Tabrilla and Mangangbao have been archived and will be brought back to the
active calendar of the court upon their apprehension.

Campus Exposé

Chua’s body was fished out from the Pasig River on March 18, 2001. The body was wrapped in a carpet, his face
covered with masking tape and his hands tied.

When investigators removed the tape from Chua’s face, his eyes popped out as the body was already in an early
stage of decomposition.

In a 72-page decision, Lopez said the court found that the perpetrators to have enjoyed and delighted in making
Chua suffer slowly and gradually, causing the latter unnecessary physical pain in the consummation of the criminal
act.

"The perpetrators’ actuations denote sadism and marked degree of malice and perversity. Chua’s inhuman death
was augmented by the use of other process of sufferings for the assailants’ satisfaction," he said.

State Prosecutor Peter Ong said the verdict was just for the crime committed. " Walang awa nilang pinatay yung
walang kalaban-laban na biktima," he said.

Prosecution witness Franco Salvador Suelto, a campus journalist, told the court that he saw Chua’s body before it
was wrapped in a carpet on March 18, 2001.

Suelto, who was then a third year BS psychology student, explained that UST-ROTC commandant Maj. Dey Tejares
was replaced by Capt. Rodolfo Batang in February 2001 due to the exposé made by Chua and a certain Romulo Yumol
in the Varsitarian, the school paper.

The exposé on alleged fixing at the ROTC prompted the Philippine National Police to conduct an investigation. The
subject of the probe invoved Tejares’ staff namely Melchore Mallones, Genesis Binagatan and Jeoffrey Binagatan.

On March 15, 2001, Suelto said he attended a meeting with cadet officers at the UST Department of Military
Service Training at the back of UST Grandstand. Present during the meeting were Tabrilla, Tan, Mangangbao,
Eliseo Petarge, Emmanuel Corpuz, Lito Orbus and other cadets.

After the meeting, Suelto said he was set to work on an article for the school paper at the Varsitarian  office, but
decided to use the computer at the officers’ lounge.

Suelto said Mangangbao and Eliseo Pitarge went ahead of him and before he could enter the lounge, he saw Aparri,
who was a fellow first class officer in the ROTC, dragging a body wearing a UST engineering uniform.

The head was wrapped with tape. The hands and feet were tied behind the back with shoelaces, Suelto told the
court. He presumed it was Chua.

Dumping The Body

Despite knowledge of the foul play, Suelto went about working on his article at the officers’ lounge, during which
Tan and Tabrilla brought in a brown carpet, which was spread on the floor. The victim’s body was placed lengthwise.

With the help of Mangangbao, they wrapped the body with the carpet. Mangangbao and Tabrilla carried the body
and Aparri helped them load it to a white pickup truck. The three left the campus past midnight of March 16, 2001.

The following day, Suelto and a classmate returned to the lounge to work on another article. Later, Mangangbao,
Tabrilla and Tan invited him for dinner. They did not talk about the killing at any point during the dinner at a
restaurant in Parañaque City.
After the dinner, Suelto and the group went to Tan’s rented house. It was there that the killers revealed to him
about their problem of disposing the body, which they have been keeping for two days.

Suelto said Tan ordered them to board the pickup, which Mangangbao drove toward the Pasig River. The body was
inside the vehicle, he said.

Upon reaching Pasig River at Lawton, Mangangbao maneuvered the truck carrying the body near the riverside.
Mangangbao, Tan and Tabrilla then dumped the body into the river.

Suelto noted that before they left the area, Tan warned all of them "that no one should know about the crime."
During the trial, the defense maintained that Chua had died during ROTC hazing rites.

But the judge said there was no reason to believe that Aparri, together with Mangangbao, Tabrilla and Tan did not
kill Chua.

"To ensure that Chua was dead after tying his hands and wrapping his face with tape, the body was even rolled up
inside a carpet," Lopez said. He noted that the killing was perpetrated as a result of vindictiveness and to put an
end to the exposé of the alleged corruption in the ROTC.

The defense lawyer maintained that Aparri, who had voluntarily surrendered, was innocent.

STORY OF MARK CHUA

Mark Welson Chua (November 30, 1981 - March 18, 2001) was a Filipino student of the University of Santo Tomas
whose death is widely believed to be linked to his exposé of alleged irregularities in the Reserve Officers' Training
Corps unit of the university. His death became the catalyst for the passage of Republic Act 9163 or the "National
Service Training Program Law",[1] which removed completion of mandatory ROTC as a precondition for graduation
for male college students in the Philippines.

BACKGROUND

Chua took his elementary and high school education at Saint Jude Catholic School and his college education at the
University of Santo Tomas. As a member of the ROTC unit's intelligence monitoring team, he had first-hand
knowledge of corruption within the organization, which he and another student, Romulo Yumol, divulged to UST's
official student publication The Varsitarian in January 2001. This resulted in the relief of then-commandant Major
Demy T Tejares and his staff.

DEATH

Chua received death threats after his revelations. The new ROTC commandant advised him to undergo security
training at Fort Bonifacio. On 15 March 2001, he was supposed to meet with an agent but he was never seen alive
again. Three days later his decomposing body, wrapped in a carpet, was found floating in the Pasig River near the
Jones Bridge.His hands and feet were tied and his face wrapped in cloth and packing tape. The autopsy report
showed that sludge was in his lungs, indicating that he was alive when he was thrown into the river. In order to
mislead investigators, his abductors had pretended to demand ransom from the Chua family.
On 31 March 2004, Arnulfo Aparri, Jr., one of the four suspects in the killing of Chua, was sentenced to die by
lethal injection, and was ordered to pay Php 50,000.00 to the victim's family as indemnity. His sentence was later
commuted to life imprisonment without parole after the death penalty was abolished in 2006. Another of the
accused, Eduardo Tabrilla, pleaded guilty to homicide and was sentenced to 6-14 years of imprisonment in 2006.
The whereabouts of the two other suspects, Paul Joseph Tan and Michael Von Rainard Manangbao remain uncertain.