Retired Benguet Electric Coop Manager Takes Own Life

September 17, 2020 JUST IN

La Trinidad, Benguet (September 17, 2020) – Former Benguet Electric Cooperative (Beneco) manager Engr. Gerardo P. Verzosa, 64, allegedly took his own life with his own handgun Wednesday afternoon right at the front passenger seat of his vehicle parked at their compound in La Trinidad, Benguet.
Benguet police initially theorizing suicide said, Verzosa, who retired from Beneco effective April this year, allegedly used a Sig Sauer P220 caliber 45 pistol with serial number G253385.  The firearm was found on top of the sink outside his house.
Investigators found out from relatives that the pistol fell when Verzosa’s wife opened the vehicle prompting her to pick the firearm then placing it on top of the sink before rushing the victim to the Pines City Doctors Hospital in Baguio City where he was declared “Dead on Arrival”.
The pistol, police investigators said, have been marked and turned over to the Regional Crime Laboratory while an autopsy was performed on the victim Wednesday night.  A spent shell was stuck at the chamber of the pistol.
The family of Verzosa, who was indicted by the Office of the Ombudsman and undergoing trial at the Sandiganbayan together with his brother-in-law,  former Balbalan, Kalinga Mayor Kenneth Mangaoang who died several years ago in connection with alleged irregular electrification of a barangay in Kalinga which is not a franchise area of Beneco,  has not issued any official statement on the incident.
Verzosa is also a brother-in-law of Kalinga lawmaker Jesse Mangaoang.
Artemio A. Dumlao