Torre to Lead Search for Missing Sabungeros

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Nicolas Torre III is willing to lead search operations to locate the remains of 34 sabungeros or cockfight enthusiasts who are believed buried in Taal Lake in Batangas.

- With Elizabeth Marcelo

PNP spokesperson Brig. Gen. Jean Fajardo said Torre wants to be personally involved in efforts to locate the sabungeros after one of the suspects, who wants to be a state witness, claimed that the victims were buried in Taal.

"The chief PNP is willing to go to the area and find the exact spot that the suspect was saying," Fajardo told journalists over the phone yesterday.

The case of the missing sabungeros is one of the cases that Torre investigated when he was chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.

On Tuesday night, the suspect, identified only as alias Totoy, claimed the victims were strangled to death with a wire before they were dumped into the lake.

Totoy was one of the six security guards at the Manila Arena where 10 of the 34 missing sabungeros were last seen.