‘It was a numbing, gruesome scene’
The early morning of June 29, 1993 was supposed to be an ordinary Tuesday in the UP Los Baños (UPLB) community. The sun was warm but the day presented a chilling scene. That day, the usually quiet, bucolic campus was gripped in fear.
At the UPLB police headquarters, a lifeless body of a woman inside a white Toyota Anfra van was being identified after the Calauan, Laguna police brought the vehicle with a body in it to the UP Police Force. She was Mary Eileen Sarmenta, 21, a graduating BS Agriculture
student of UPLB with a major in food and nutrition for large animals.
And what heartless beasts could have done this to Eileen? Her body was desecrated, a portion of her head blown off. Her melon orange Giordano Classic shirt was rolled up, her white short pants rolled down her ankles. She was still shod in her favorite white Tretorn.
It was a numbing scene. Gruesome. Where was the sweet-smiling Eileen who was full of life as we rehearsed for “Pitik Bulag sa Buwan ng Pebrero?” This was a play co-produced by her sorority, Sigma Delta Phi, with the UPLB Com Arts Society in 1990, where she acted as one of the dancers of Jackie, the character I played. She, with the distinct mole on her left cheek that defined further her beautiful face when she smiled, was gone.
Her senseless death was an unfathomable reality that changed the landscape of the university.
Students, teachers and university workers had yet to recover from the shock and terror brought about by Eileen’s death when, after a few hours, they heard that the body of Allan Gomez, 19, Eileen’s companion the night before, had been found in “a dumpsite,” as described by some of his brothers in Upsilon Sigma Phi, in Calauan. His body bore gunshot wounds. Allan was also an Agriculture student majoring in beef production.
His was another life wasted in the hands of the criminals. The white Anfra van, by the way, was Allan’s. He and Eileen were kidnapped on the night of June 28, 1993 as they were in the van, about to leave a restaurant in front of the Agrix shopping complex.
Outrage ensued. The perpetrators were identified. After an arduous 16-month trial, then Calauan mayor Antonio Sanchez, who claimed to be a Marian devotee, and six of his henchmen were convicted for the rape and murder of Eileen and the killing of Allan. Each convict was sentenced to seven life terms.
The case was a nightmare that resurrected early this week with the impending release of Sanchez from prison ostensibly for “good behavior.”
“The trauma of that June 29, 1993 morning came back to me,” says K, who declined to be identified.
K and Eileen were dorm mates at La Ville, a dormitory for women inside UPLB next to the St. Therese chapel. She was one of those who positively identified the body of Eileen.
Their landlady was alarmed when Eileen did not come home the night before. She was never a delinquent resident of the dormitory.
“We were a room apart in the dorm. She was a gentle ate to almost impetuous younger me,” K said.
“Until now, I still vividly remember the morning when our Dorm Mother (landlady), before 8 a.m., told us that Eileen was gone. We were asked to go to the UPF Station to identify her body. I still can’t bear the memory of seeing how she looked that morning of June 29, 1993. The trauma is still there,” she added.
K said Allan was the confidante of Eileen. They were never in a romantic relationship.