Dead-set mom finds suspect in 2 sons’ murder, not authorities

By Miko L. Morelos
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: June 13, 2010

FOR YEARS AFTER HER TWO SONS were murdered in 2003, lawyer Carmencita de Castro had been receiving information on the whereabouts of the primary suspect, the son of the late Fe Sarmiento Panlilio, reknowned jeweler here and abroad.

Some of the tips were accurate and some were false, she said, given by people who were merely taking advantage of her and had no qualms about demanding money in exchange for the information.

So that when her mobile phone beeped two weeks ago to announce a message from a tipster claiming a sighting of Jose Ma. “Bong” Panlilio in Pattaya, Thailand, De Castro relayed it to the authorities. It had become a routine for her for the past seven years.

The tip turned out to be what the mother of the murdered Albert Gutierrez and Ariel Real had long been waiting for.

On June 8, Thai police raided a jewelry company in the coastal city of Pattaya and arrested Panlilio for violating Thailand’s immigration laws. He was deported to Manila early yesterday.

“I have received leads that turned out to be false, but when I got the message from the tipster, I had a good feeling about it,” De Castro told the Inquirer on the phone shortly after landing in Manila from Bangkok .

She had taken the first flight out of the Thai capital, the same flight that carried Panlilio and Thai immigration officials.

From the airport, Panlilio, 56, was taken to Camp Crame, where De Castro had a chance to confront the son of the late socialite jeweler and the Philippines’ most wanted fugitive.

“We had nothing but respect for you. You have children, too. Why did you have to take my sons away from me?” she recalled telling Panlilio.

She said the suspect did not say a word.

Happiness

Sprightly at 74, De Castro, accompanied by her two siblings, had flown to Bangkok as soon as she informed the Interpol office in Camp Crame about the tip she got on her mobile phone.

She personally brought Panlilio’s case records to the authorities in Bangkok for their scrutiny and evaluation.

“I am happy that Panlilio has been arrested. Justice has finally come to me,” De Castro said.

She described the Thai police as “very helpful and accommodating.”

“From the day we arrived until Friday [June 4], I kept coming back to their office to give them more information,” she recounted. “Some of the staff there asked what I was doing there, and I replied that I had to bring the case records to them.”

According to the case records, the half-brothers Real, then 28, and Gutierrez, then 31, agreed to buy Panlilio’s van which he had pawned to a friend for P250,000.

They and Panlilio were to redeem the van on July 15, 2003, but the suspect purportedly took them to a subdivision in Barangay Makiling, Laguna, where they were shot dead.

Witnesses testified seeing Panlilio alighting from the brothers’ vehicle and fleeing the crime scene.

In 2004, the prosecutor’s office in Calamba, Laguna, found probable cause to try Panlilio; a court issued a warrant for his arrest.

P5-M bounty

De Castro initially offered a reward of P300,000 for information leading to the arrest of Panlilio.

The bounty snowballed to P5 million as time went by, with the help of relatives, the Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation.

Panlilio was put on the Interpol’s “red notice list,” the highest-level request for the arrest and extradition of wanted persons back to member-countries.

(Fugitive Sen. Panfilo Lacson is also on the red notice list, for purported involvement in the twin killings of public relations man Salvador Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito in 1999.)

De Castro has constantly been on top of the search for Panlilio, who disappeared right after her sons were killed.

Scouring towns and provinces in the hinterlands, she spent days handing out flyers bearing Panlilio’s picture and the details of the crimes of which he is accused.

She also put up huge tarpaulin streamers in various parts of the capital, seeking permission from the Metro Manila Development Authority for the use of its announcement space fixtures in major thoroughfares.

“My efforts finally paid off,” she said Saturday.

‘There he is!’

From her hotel on June 8, De Castro phoned the Thai police office to ask if her presence was needed there. A staff member told her to stay put.

Hours later, authorities phoned her to say that Panlilio had been arrested.

“I told them, ‘Sir, I will run there right away,’ but the agent instructed me to stay in the hotel because [Panlilio] might see me,” De Castro told the Inquirer.

The police eventually summoned her to the station to identify Panlilio.

The accuser and the accused met in a room, with Panlilio at one end of a long table and the authorities lined up beside it.

“There he is, there he is!” De Castro exclaimed to the authorities as she entered the room.

“He gave me a cold stare,” she told the Inquirer. “I tried walking toward him, but an immigration officer patted me on the shoulder and told me to stay back.”

Panlilio went through the standard procedures like fingerprinting and documentation of the arrest. De Castro said he was silent throughout the proceedings.

‘God sent me here’

A day later, De Castro again went to the police station and met with the immigration officials who, she said, seemed puzzled by her presence.

“They asked me, ‘Who sent you here?’ I told them, ‘God sent me here,’” she said, adding that the Thai authorities smiled.

De Castro said she might not be able to personally handle her sons’ case in court because she could get too emotional during the trial.

“I might break down and be disappointed during the proceedings. But I will be there in case my presence is needed,” she said.

Asked what made her feel that this time, the tip was accurate, De Castro said the sender had not demanded money outright, unlike other sources who named their price before giving their information.

“The tipster asked me if the reward [would be given], and I said, ‘Yes, of course,’” De Castro said. “By all means, I will make sure that the person gets the bounty.”

Camp Crame

Panlilio arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Pasay City at around 6 a.m. aboard a Cebu Pacific flight from Bangkok, according to Chief Supt. Leonardo Espina, the PNP spokesperson.

Espina said agents of the Philippine Center for Transnational Crime led by Chief Insp. Edgardo Hernandez took Panlilio to the PNP Custodial Center at Camp Crame.

He said Panlilio would be temporarily detained in Camp Crame pending the formal turnover of the suspect’s warrant of arrest to the issuing court.

Bureau of Immigration spokesperson Floro Balato said the circumstances of Panlilio’s departure from the Philippines would be investigated. With reports from Marlon Ramos and Kristine L. Alave