By MARTIN A. SADONGDONG
Two inmates at the drug detention cell of Pasay City Police Station are facing murder charges for mauling a fellow detainee to death, police said yesterday.
Senior Supt. Dionisio Bartolome, chief of Pasay police, said the charges have been filed against Joven Ogaya, 35, and Marlon Olandres, 25, for allegedly beating up Mark Villamena, 35, which led to his death inside the detention cell of Pasay City Police-Station Drug Enforcement Unit (SDEU).
Villamena was “found unconscious” around 6:30 a.m. on July 10, police report showed.
The report said a certain Benjie Villocillo, dubbed as “the leader of the detainees,” claimed that “sick” Villamena “is showing erratic behavior, shouting and became unruly towards his co-detainees” before he “passed out and became unconscious.”
However, after weeks of probe, PO3 Simeon Respicio, case investigator, found out that Villamena sustained massive injuries in the head and different parts of his body based on the autopsy results.
In a follow-up police report, Bartolome said that Ogaya and Olandres, “for still unknown reasons, join hands [in] mauling the victim” inside the safety cell of Pasay drug suspects.
Inspector Maynard Pascual, head of Pasay Police SDEU, has yet to give a statement on the incident.
Alias “Peter,” an insider at Pasay SDEU, claimed that Villamena and the two suspects had a heated argument on the night of July 9 due to limited space and ventilation in the facility.
Peter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for safety reasons, claimed the suspects got mad when Villamena took the spot where the two were usually taking rest, triggering a verbal tussle that led to mauling.
The Pasay SDEU houses 20 to 30 drug suspects which was designed ideally to accommodate only half of the number it currently holds.
Records showed that Villamena was arrested for possession of illegal drugs in a one time, big time police operation last July 6. The suspects, on the other hand, were nabbed in a buy-bust operation last month.
Olandres, whom police also tagged as a notorious robber, was transferred to Pasay City Jail while Ogaya remains at Pasay SDEU.