Bacoleño gets life
for marijuana sale
BY ADRIAN NEMES III

A man was sentenced to life imprisonment yesterday for selling 11. 84 grams of dried marijuana leaves and fruiting tops to a police-poseur buyer in Brgy. Felisa, Bacolod City in 2010.

Regional Trial Court Branch 47 Judge Edgar Garvilles, found Gerry Goopio, alias “Nonoy Gopio”, 23, of Brgy. Handumanan, Bacolod, guilty beyond reasonable doubt of violating Section 5, Article II of Republic Act 9165 or the Dangerous Drugs Act of 2202.

The judge also ordered him to pay P500,000 as fine and that be remitted to the national penitentiary in Muntinlupa City, while the dried marijuana leaves and fruiting tops were ordered confiscated and delivered to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.

Police investigators are eyeing a truck driver and his helper as possible suspects in the brutal killing of a homosexual whose body was found with 21 stab wounds in a grassy area near the Bacolod City Real Estate Development Corp. port number 3, at about 1 p.m. Wednesday.

Station 2 chief, Senior Insp. Robert Dejucos, said yesterday that the victim, Eddie Saraet Bolatayo, 21, of Brgy. Canturay in Sipalay City, Negros Occidental, and a temporary resident of Purok Pitaw in Brgy. 13, Bacolod, was identified by his elder brother Nelson yesterday at the ABES Funeral Homes.

Nelson, who works as a hamburger store employee, said he heard through the radio about the discovery of the body of a man whose description fitted that of his brother, the police said..

“I will kneel before them if they want, so they could forgive my son”

This was the message of the father of the 16-year-old suspect in the brutal killing of Dr. Andres Gumban to the family and friends of the doctor, when interviewed by ABS-CBN Bacolod yesterday.

Until now, he said, they find it hard to believe that his son did the crime even after he saw the video taken of how Gumban was killed.