Police not closing Tan case yet
'DOJ hold-order will keep Tan's killers here,' BID exec says
Bautista
Murder and parricide charges may have been filed against the Tan brothers, however the police is not yet keeping the case closed.
Iloilo City Police Office (ICPO) director Senior Supt. Norlito Bautista said they don't consider the Tan massacre case closed despite the filing of cases against Archie and John Michael Tan, sons of slain businessman Francisco "Bobby" Tan.
Bautista said they will continue to dig deeper on the case to find out if other individuals from the Tan household participated in the execution of the crime.
Bautista said the filing of the case was only an initial move after finding probable cause against the the two Tan siblings.
He said they are not stopping their investigations. The police, he said, still want to find out if there was a mastermind in the crime.
CIDG 6 filed double murder and parricide cases against the Archie and John Michael in the City Prosecution Office Friday morning.
Senior Supt. Renato Gumban, chief of CIDG 6, said they tagged Tan's two sons culprits based on forensic and circumstantial evidences they have gathered from 15 witnesses and more than 50 pieces of evidences.
Meanwhile, concerns of an easy escape for the two suspects are best addressed by the "hold-order" from the Department of Justice (DOJ).
As such, any attempts for foreign travel unless undocumented, will ensure barred departure for these subjects. In fact, immigration agents in all exit points of the country will duly act on the request once official entry has been made in the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation's (BID) "hold-order list."
This was the clarification made by Reinfred Tubal, BID regional office chief in a phone interview with The News Today. The process, Tubal explained, would have been more elaborate however in cases where escape is highly feared and believed, no less than the DOJ Secretary can make the request to the BID Commissioner and almost instantaneously, the alert will be sounded off to all immigration agents and officers.
The Tan killings shocked the Ilonggo community and raised fears within the Filipino-Chinese business groups of which Tan maintains a high regard. Heir to the Tan wealth, Bobby Tan, wife Cindy and daughter Katherine were stabbed to death in what has now become the most celebrated crime in Iloilo.
Recent reports disclosed of autopsy results that confirmed nine fatal stab wounds on Cindy while Bobby sustained at least 15.
"Clearly a crime of passion and not the handiwork of criminals or a result of foiled robbery" a police insider shared.
With the burial set on Wednesday, charges were filed against the two Tan children that bolstered talks of a planned escape for the duo.
"As far as we are concerned, we are ready to act at anytime that we get the official orders," Tubal ended.
The Tan family has yet to give their reaction on the filing of charges against Archie and John Michael.
Earlier, Conchita Tan, aunt of Archie and John Michael, absolved the two of the crime and alluded to their former security guard as the perpetrator.
J. Vini Gulmatico, the security guard allegedly alluded to by Conchita as the suspect, denied the allegations saying he was in his house in Leganes, Iloilo when the crime happened.
Police investigations also did not find anything that would link Gulmatico in the gruesome murder.
Archie and John Michael were reported to have come out of the Tan mansion on midnight of Sunday for a night out by scaling through the back wall.
Ramil Loberisa, security guard on duty at the mansion that time, alleged that the two came back passing through the same back wall around 3 a.m. eventually discovering the dead bodies of the three victims.