by Julius Mariveles and Mira Nicole Magbanua
BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental, Philippines – Except for the coroner’s finding that they were men, nothing much is known yet about three persons whose remains were stuffed in a sack and found on the edge of a ridge in an upland community with a beautiful vista.
“They remain unknown,” Mark Anthony Darroca, the police chief of Silay City told DNX about the discovery of the remains by a villager of Lantawan, a community in the upland barangay of Guimbalaon, around 40 kilometers north of here.
Darroca, a police lieutenant colonel, said the man, who is now the lone witness related to the discovery of the remains, told probers on 31 December 2022 that he saw from his house by the roadside what seemed to be a Toyota Innova van park along Uyot Bridge late in the evening of 26, December, last year.
He added he saw two men get out of the car and throw something that looked like a sack from off the bridge.
It was only four days later, on 30 December 2022, that the witness decided to check the spot where the sack was thrown and found the remains.
He reported it to the police a day later.
Darroca said the coroner who checked on the remains said these belonged to men, two who were already skeletons possibly slain months ago while the one who was still rotting possibly killed on the day they were dumped.
A shot of the area where the sack was thrown shows a bridge facing mountains framed by greenery.
Lantawan is famous for coffeeshop and bars with beautiful mountain vistas and is the village before Patag.
Both villages increasingly attract foreign and domestic tourists for its cool climate and beautiful scenery.
