Judge finds ‘textmate’
guilty for teacher’s slay
BY CARLA GOMEZ

A “textmate” was sentenced to eight years imprisonment yesterday for the death of a 22-year-old elementary school teacher in an apartelle in Bacolod City in 2005.

Bacolod Regional Trial Court Branch 42 Judge Fernando Elumba sentenced Mark Anthony Gonzales to suffer imprisonment of six years and one day as minimum penalty, to eight years as maximum penalty.

On March 13, 2005, Gonzales attacked and boxed Michelle Grey Montinola in a room they had checked into at the Palm Inn Apartelle in Bacolod City that caused her death, information filed in court said.

Wake held at site of fire
BY SHIELA GELERA

The bodies of three siblings killed in the fire that hit their house and five others, in Purok Kawayanan 2, Brgy. Handumanan in Bacolod City, Tuesday, will be buried Friday at the Handumanan Cemetery in the barangay.

Senior Insp. Ruel Culanag, Station 10 chief told the DAILY STAR that the wake for Rica, 16, Rex, 7, and Arvin, 3, all surnamed Montero, is being held at the site where they were trapped and killed.

Ricardo, their father, decided to hold it in the area where their house had been located. Culanag said relatives had placed a canopy in the area.

Concelebrated mass
for victims today
BY CHRYSEE SAMILLANO

A mass will be held at the BAYS Center at 5 p.m. today to mark the 33rd year of the visit of Pope John Paul to Bacolod City, as well as for the fire victims of Barangays 10, Taculing and Handumanan, Bacolod City, Fr. Felix Pasquin, rector of the Bacolod San Sebastian Cathedral, said yesterday.

Pasquin said “This is the way we celebrate the 33rd anniversary of Pope John Paul’s visit to Bacolod City, being in solidarity with the fire victims, who are also parishioners of the Church.”

The significance of the Pope’s visit to Bacolod City on Feb. 20, 1981 is that, it was also a time of crisis in Bacolod City and Negros Occidental, with the sinking of Don Juan and the sugar crisis. So the visit of Pope John Paul ll lifted up the spirits of the people then, he said.