(UPDATE) Five, including ex-journalist, stabbed dead in Pasay condo

August 30, 2017

Five persons, including a former journalist, died when a man went on a stabbing rampage Tuesday night at a condominium in Pasay, a police report said.

Slain by the suspect later identified as Alberto Garan  were Joel Palacios, 70; Emelyn Sagun, 30, Daisery Castillo, 12, Ligaya Dimapilis and Letecia Ecsiagan, 50. They were all occupants of  Central Park 2 Condominium.

Garan was shot dead by responding policemen  past 10 pm, or nearly 4 hours after he began stabbing people, a report to Pasay City Police Chief Senior Superintendent Dionisio Bartolome said.

Palacios, a former Reuters correspondent in the 1980s who later became sub-editor for the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Today and Manila Standard, was former vice president for media affairs at the Social Security System from 1996 to 2012.

National Capitol Region Police Director Oscar Albayalde said in a radio interview that Garan and Sagun quarreled and after that Garan stabbed people whom he would meet at the 16th floor,

Injured were Belcris Elorde, 24; April Joy Sagarino, 20, Arlyn Dian Cordero, and Margie Morales.

Police recovered at the 23rd floor a 14-inch kitchen knife used by the suspect,  three cellular phones and sling bag containing IDs under the name of Alberto Garan.

"The suspect was positively identified at the Rizal Funeral Homes morgue by at least 7 witnesses as the one who caused the rampage," the police report said. DMS