Cops nab driver in killing of film critic Tioseco, girlfriend

Quezon City policemen on Tuesday said they have arrested a suspect in the twin killings of Filipino-Canadian film critic Alexis Tioseco and his Slovenian girlfriend. Superintendent Gerardo Ratuita, chief of the Quezon City Police District Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit, identified the suspect as Danilo Jovoc Sr., 47. Ratuita said that Joboc, a driver at the Tioseco family’s trucking business, was arrested inside the garage of his employer’s business office in Taguig City last Saturday. Police tracked down Joboc after witnesses pointed to him as the one who abandoned the Ford Lynx with plate number CPW-329 that was stolen and then used by the suspects as their getaway vehicle. Jovoc's features also matched the artist’s sketch produced by investigators based on witness accounts. The QCPD has lodged double murder and robbery complaints against the suspect before the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office. Authorities are still hunting down three other suspects in the killings, including Tioseco’s newly hired maid Criselda Dayag. On the night of the shooting, Dayag reportedly told Magdalena Patpat, Tioseco’s other maid of three years, that she was stepping out to buy something from a store. When Dayag came back, she was already with three armed men. The four then hogtied and gagged Patpat before killing 28-year-old Tioseco and Nika Bohinc, 30. The suspects took off with some of the couple’s belongings including cash, cameras, and laptop computers. Tioseco’s remains will be brought to Angeles City in Pampanga and will be interred beside his father’s remains. Bohinc’s remains was to be flown to Slovenia on Tuesday. Tribute messages from the couple's colleagues and friends flooded blogs after news of their death came out. [See: Colleagues remember film critic Tioseco, girlfriend] Multi-awarded artist-activist Lourd de Veyra, Tioseco’s friend, hailed the film critic’s expertise in his field, saying, “You write the kind of criticism I am completely incapable of — Earnest, passionate but sober and circumspect." “You make us take a second look at ourselves, we who have made a living out of hurling insults and peddling petty sarcasm, celebrating — with no small amounts of condescencion – that which is shameful, trivial, and absurd," de Veyra said. Tioseco and Bohinc met in 2007 at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Tioseco was the webmaster of Critcine, a magazine-type website that dissects the independent-film industry in Asia. “Your inexhaustible energy and enthusiasm for this ever-expanding beast called independent cinema astounds me," de Veyra said. - GMANews.TV