JEDDAH, 7 January 2008 — The Filipino worker in Yanbu who was stabbed dead last Thursday by a compatriot in an alleged case of grudge killing has been identified as Marlon Viernes Delizo.
A group of Filipinos helping distressed compatriots in the Kingdom said the victim was an on-site electrician from the northern Philippine province of Nueva Vizcaya.
Albert Adecer, a volunteer of the group V-Team, reported by e-mail that the suspect was identified by the police as Rogelio Nopal Monia from Bagong Silang in Manila’s northern suburb of Caloocan City.
Both the victim and suspected killer work for Hadi Haider Company, which is constructing an electrical substation in Yanbu.
Adecer said the Pakistani project manager of the company informed the Philippine Consulate in Jeddah about the killing. The consulate said it was still gathering more information about the case.
Yanbu, an industrial city along the Kingdom’s Red Sea coast, is three-and-a-half hours ride north of Jeddah.
A police officer earlier told Arab News that the victim was killed during a drinking spree, and that a third worker who tried to intervene and stop the fight was injured.
In his report to the V-Team yesterday, Adecer said there were actually seven Filipinos who were being questioned by investigators. He quoted some workers of the company as saying they were surprised by the stabbing incident because the last time they heard, the victim and suspect have agreed to patch up their differences.
Delizo was the third OFW death reaching the consulate in Jeddah since Dec. 27.
Simplicio Sarangaya of Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, died on Dec. 28 at the King Abdulaziz Hospital in Jeddah while under treatment for a still undisclosed illness.
On Saturday, 47-year-old Edgardo O. Bolocon of Southern Leyte province in the central Philippines died at the King Fahd Hospital, also in Jeddah.
“I regret to report that our kababayan expired before 5 p.m. today,” OFW Cooperative Council Chairman Fred Castolome said by phone on Saturday, half an hour after doctors declared the patient dead.
Bolocon was brought to the consulate only on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, by two other Filipinos. Castolome and welfare officers of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) and wards of the consulate’s shelter for distressed women workers took turns caring for Bolocon in an attempt to keep him alive.
Incoming OFWCC Chairman Atoy Esguerra came to the consulate with two nurses, Marjorie Labio and Meris Mendoza Siacor, who gave intravenous fluids to the patient.
On Dec. 27, Bolocon was brought to King Fahd Hospital upon the instruction of new Consul General Ezzedin Tago.
A nurse at the hospital who gave her name only as Grace said the patient was diagnosed with Diagnosed with “ascending cholangitis,” a bacterial infection of the biliary tract.
