Bacolod Mayor Monico Puentevella yesterday said he is offering a P20,000 cash reward to witnesses who can help identify the suspects who gunned down a 61-year-old former banker near the East View Hotel at the Circumferential Road, in Brgy. Villamonte, Bacolod City, Saturday.

The police are facing difficulty in handling the case of Francisco Loarca because the witnesses are reluctant to cooperate.

Puentevella said he will give the reward to the witnesses who rd n give any information about the suspects. He said they do not have to come out in public to help the police find the whereabouts of the suspects.

He added that Senior Supt. Pedrito Escarilla, officer-in-charge of Bacolod City Police Office, has composed a task force to deeply probe the death of Loarca.

Senior Insp. Benedicto Villarias, Police Station 4 commander, said that the two eyewitnesses refused to come into the open and help in solving the killing of Francisco Loarca, 61, of Barangay Taculing in Bacolod.

The police probers tried to reach the witnesses but they were not responding, Villarias said.

However, he said that they are determined to locate the suspects and they are now taking another initiative to aid the investigation like viewing of closed-circuit television cameras near the scene of the crime.

Villarias said they have started viewing footages of CCTVs at the roads, where the suspects, who were riding a red motorcycle, would have possibly passed, and the places where Loarca had gone before the incident.

They have already requested four institutions to let the police view their CCTV footages, Villarias said.

He said it is a good move of the family of Loarca to seek help from the National Bureau of Investigation for a parallel investigation.

The Bacolod Police had already created a task force to determine the motive of the killing and to identify the suspects. It is headed by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, with the BCPO Investigation and Detective Management Unit, and Provincial Crime Laboratory as co-groups.

NBI-Bacolod agent-in-charge Joseph Rigodon confirmed yesterday that the family of Loarca had asked help from them.

Rigodon told ABS-CBN-Bacolod that they need witnesses to go through with the investigation.

Loarca was on board his Toyota RAV4 Sports Utility Vehicle and was about to park near the East View Hotel when the gunman, who was on a motorcycle, driven by another man, blocked his way and shot him four times, hitting his neck and left arm.*SGG

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