Cutcut chairwoman Cecila Nepomuceno told Punto that the boy was an orphan whose three siblings were given for adoption by relatives after their father died of kidney failure and their mother of bone cancer years ago. She asked that the name of the boy be withheld as requested by his adoptive parents from Barangay Sta. Cruz in Porac town.
“The boy was supposed to attend so-called moving up ceremonies as second honor pupil in his school in Porac after he finished Grade 10,” she said. The boy was initially delayed in his schooling after being orphaned.
Nepomuceno said she knew the boy’s adoptive parents who told her that the victim’s ambition was to finish studies and find work so that he could again gather his three younger siblings so that they could be together again as one family.
Nepomuceno said that last Sunday, the boy was with six other classmates to buy items for a school project in a mall. In the mall, one of his companions accidentally bumped against one of a group of eight young boys who took offense, she said.
Police probers said that from the mall the victim and his companions decided to go to the park where the group of eight boys followed and confronted them.
“The victim was the first to be hit. He was ganged up on when he fell while his other companions ran to a nearby police office to seek help,” the police report said.
Nepomuceno said all the suspects turned out to be residents of Cutcut and that aside from one who claimed to be 18 years old, the seven others were minors, including a 13-year-old.
The six others were from 15 to 17 years old.
Nepomuceno declined to identify the oldest suspect pending the submission of his birth certificate, but a test on him indicated traces of the illegal drug shabu in him.
The suspects were held by the local social welfare office, but the 13-year-old was released to his parents because of his age.
