Suspects in beheading, mutilation of North Cotabato farmer arrested
Mindanao Armed Conflict • 15:30 PM Mon Mar 21, 2022
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By:
John M. Unson
The brothers Givehart and John Paul Masunong, shown in this police photo, are now detained. (From PRO-12)
KIDAPAWAN CITY --- The police has clamped down the siblings tagged in last week’s beheading in Arakan, North Cotabato of a farmer whose ears and sex organ they also cut and threw away.
Givehart Masunong, 23, and his 19-year-old brother, John Paul, surrendered over the weekend to community leaders in Barangay Banate in Malungon, Sarangani when they learned that witnesses have pointed to them as behind the brutal murder five days before of farmer Berlie Rama.
The Masunongs have confessed to having killed Rama with a machete inside his house in Barangay Ganatan in Arakan due to a misunderstanding while they were drinking together.
Rama’s severed head was found outside of his house.
The two suspects also chopped off his sex organ and ears before they escaped and, subsequently, returned to their hometown, Malungon, about three hours away from Arakan via overland travel.
Brig. Gen. Alexander Tagum, director of the Police Regional Office-12, confirmed on Monday the arrest of the Masunong brothers.
They are now locked in a police detention facility, awaiting prosecution.
Local officials in Arakan said the siblings were stowaways from Malungon and were accommodated by Rama in his farmhouse in an interior area in Barangay Ganatan after they promised to help him till his farm as his wards.