The self-confessed killer of a Swiss-Filipino resort owner on Boracay Island surrendered last week, six months after stabbing dead his former employer.
Jesus Palbaquer, 25 of Brgy. Luna, Sagay City, admitted he repeatedly stabbed Araceli Villanueva-Hugg on June 19 in her room at the third floor of the family-owned Bamboo Beach Resort near Boat Station 3, on the southern end of Boracay Island.
"I killed her because I could not take the way she treated her workers," Palbaquer said when he was presented to reporters at the regional police headquarters in Camp Martin Delgado, Iloilo City.
Resort staff found Hugg’s body with multiple stab wounds inside her room on June 20. Hugg, 48, was married to a Swiss national. Her husband Paul and two children were in Switzerland when she was killed.
The killer and his victim are townmates, both are from Sagay City in Negros Occidental.Palbaquer sought the help of radio station Bombo Radyo in Bacolod City in surrendering to the police after operatives of the National Bureau of Investigation and policemen started looking for him at his cousin’s house where he stayed for two months in Barangay Ma-ao, Bago City. He said he spent nine days in a sugarcane field to elude the investigators before deciding to surrender.The Regional Trial Court, Branch 9, Kalibo, Aklan had issued a warrant for Palbaquer’s arrest on November 3 for robbery with homicide. No bail was recommended.
Investigators said, "between P40,000 and 50,000, and a mobile phone were missing from the victim’s room".
Palbaquer admitted that he took the victim’s mobile phone but denied that he stole any money."I surrendered because I knew that whoever was after me wanted to kill me and I wanted to clear my name on the things that I did not do," Palbaquer said.
Palbaquer claimed that Hugg only gave him an allowance of P2,000 for two months after working around seven months at the resort. He did not return to work after she told him to take a vacation.
But he said he was driven to kill her after she laid off two of his friends without paying them their wages before he returned to Boracay in June.
He said he waited for the victim to come to her room and stabbed her with a butcher’s knife as she opened the door. He then stayed with relatives in Negros Occidental, first in Victorias City and later in Bago City.
Chief Supt. Edwin Pfleider, deputy regional director for administration of the Police Regional Office 6, said Palbaquer will be presented to the Kalibo RTC and will be detained in Aklan. /MP mailto:madyaas_pen@yahoo.com
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