TAGAYTAY, Philippines: The suspect in the killings of two Australians and their Filipino companion at a hotel in a popular resort city south of Manila surrendered and claimed he wanted to retaliate against the hotel for firing him, Philippine officials said Wednesday.
The suspect further said that he randomly barged into the victims’ room last week because its window was open, authorities added.
The victims, whose hands and feet were tied, were found sprawled on the floor in a street-level room at the Lake Hotel in Tagaytay city on July 10 in a heinous crime that shattered the tranquility the tourism destination known for a picturesque volcano nestled in a lake, Tagaytay Mayor Abraham Tolentino said.
In a pre-dawn news conference at the city hall, Tolentino and police officials presented the handcuffed suspect, who was wearing a hoodie, dark eyeglasses and a face mask. The man, whose identity was not released, will face criminal complaints for the killings and robbery, Tagaytay police chief Charles Daven Capagcuan said.
The mayor repeated an apology to the victims’ families and to Australia for what he called the senseless killings.
“We are pleased to present to you the main suspect in this brutal crime and as promised that within a week, we will resolve and give justice,” Tolentino said, without identifying the victims as requested by their families.
In a Southeast Asian country where many criminal suspects have managed to evade arrest for months or years before getting captured, Tolentino commended the police for rapidly identifying and locating the suspect, who was then apparently pressured to give up.
Capagcuan told The Associated Press ahead of the news conference that the breakthrough in the case came when the suspect was identified by at least three hotel employees based on his image, which was captured by security cameras showing a part of his face when his mask slid down.
The identification and information from witnesses eventually led authorities to the suspect’s Batangas home province near Tagaytay, where he decided to surrender on Tuesday, the police chief said.
“He wanted to get back at the hotel management for his dismissal,” Capagcuan told reporters, adding that the suspect used to work as a swimming pool cleaner but was fired by the hotel in March after he was linked to a robbery in one of the rooms.
Police officials planned to file criminal complaints of robbery in addition to the killings against the suspect.
The man acknowledged taking the watch and shoes of the Australian male victim after attacking him with a knife and suffocating his partner, a Filipino woman who had acquired Australian citizenship, and her Filipino daughter-in-law, Capagcuan said.
“He barged randomly with a knife into the room because its window was open,” Capagcuan said.
The Australian woman and her daughter-in-law are to be buried in their family’s home province in the Philippines while the remains of the Australian man would be flown Tuesday to Sydney, Tolentino said.
The Australian couple had planned to fly back to Australia on July 10, the day they were killed, but decided to briefly take a vacation in Tagaytay, the Filipino son of the slain Australian-Filipino woman told AP. He spoke on condition of anonymity last week because he was fearful after what happened to his mother and his wife and given the suspect remained at large at that time.
During the news conference, the son, who still concealed his identity with a white facial mask and a sport cap, thanked the police and the mayor for quickly locating the suspect. He asked the suspect, who was standing near him, what made him commit the gruesome crime but the man did not respond.
Tagaytay, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of Manila, is popular among local and foreign tourists who flock there for its cool weather and to view one of the world’s smallest active volcanos in a lake from elevated ridges teeming with restaurants, viewing decks and hotels, including the one where last week’s killings took place.
 

LAS VEGAS: President Joe Biden returned to the campaign trail on Tuesday for the first time since the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, continuing his calls to calm the divisive rhetoric on both sides but also arguing that doing so “doesn’t mean we should stop telling the truth” about his Republican rival.
Addressing the NAACP convention in Las Vegas, Biden said curbing political violence in the country should mean combating all kinds of bloodshed — including reducing police brutality and banning weapons like the AR-style rifle used in the weekend attack on the former president.
“Our politics have become too heated,” Biden said.
That didn’t stop him from tearing into Trump, though, listing why the former president’s administration was “hell” for Black Americans, including his mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, skyrocketing unemployment amid early lockdowns and attempts to, as Biden put it, erase Black history.
“Just because we must lower the temperature in our politics as it relates to violence doesn’t mean we should stop telling the truth,” Biden told the crowd that often broke into chants of “Four more years!”
The president is aiming to showcase his administration’s support for Black voters who are a tentpole of the Democratic coalition and of his personal political support. As part of his swing in Nevada, he’ll also participate in an interview with BET and address the Hispanic advocacy group UnidosUS, another crucial Democratic-leaning bloc.
For the NAACP crowd, Biden seized on Trump recently referencing “Black jobs,” drawing big applause by joking, “I love the phrase.”
“I know what a Black job is. It’s the vice president of the United States,” Biden said of Vice President Kamala Harris, who he added “could be president.” He also referenced Barack Obama as the nation’s first Black president, and his own appointment to the Supreme Court of its first Black and female justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Biden’s trip comes as Democrats have been engaged in a weeks-long crisis of confidence over his candidacy after his devastating debate with Trump last month. The president’s shaky performance inflamed voter concerns about his age, fitness for office and capacity to defeat Trump once again.
Republicans, for their part, are demonstrating that they are more coalesced than ever around Trump amid their national convention in Milwaukee.
The 81-year-old Biden has rejected a flurry of calls from within his party to step aside, restating his belief that he is the best-positioned Democrat to beat Trump. He has relied heavily on his support among Black and Latino elected officials, and was set to appear with many of them in Nevada.
The president made indirect reference to unrest in his own party on Tuesday, recalling President Harry S. Truman famously saying, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”
“After the last couple of weeks, I know what he means,” Biden said. He said later, “hopefully, with age, comes a little bit of wisdom.”
Biden also promised to use the first 100 days of a second term to oversee congressional approval of a dramatic expansion of voting rights — something he’s been unable to so far. He also renewed earlier promises to “end medical debt,” saying he was working with states to settle outstanding bills for care for “pennies on the dollar.”
“I know the good Lord hasn’t brought us this far to leave us now,” Biden told the convention, offering overtly religious tones.
Trump has tried to appeal to both Black and Latino voters, hoping to capitalize on Biden’s sagging favorability. While it’s not clear that the loss of enthusiasm for Biden has helped Trump’s approval with those groups, any marginal loss of support for Biden could prove pivotal in a close race.
The president and his campaign hit pause on their criticisms of Trump in the immediate aftermath of the shooting Saturday at Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania, where the Republican candidate was injured in the ear, a rallygoer was killed and two others seriously injured.
In an Oval Office address on Sunday night, Biden called on Americans to reject political violence and for political leaders to “cool it down.” In a Monday interview with NBC News he allowed that he made a ” mistake ” when he told campaign donors that he wanted to put a “bull’s-eye” on Trump, but argued that the rhetoric from his opponent was more incendiary.
“Look, how do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when a president says things like he says?” Biden said. “Do you just not say anything because it may incite somebody?”
NAACP President Derrick Johnson, in an interview with the AP, sidestepped questions about whether Biden should step aside as the Democratic nominee and whether the president, who often credits his place in the Oval Office to Black voters, could still inspire people to turn out for his candidacy.
Johnson instead focused on the need for Black voters to hear “solutions” on issues like inflation, education and attacks on civil rights, which are among the top concerns for Black communities in this election.
“We want to focus on the policy goals of whoever occupies the White House in the next term,” Johnson said. He added that Black voters would dismiss candidates “concerned with personality and sound bites.”
Later, speaking at an economic summit hosted by Congressional Black Caucus Chair and Rep. Steven Horsford at the College of Southern Nevada’s campus in North Las Vegas, Biden announced that the regional housing authority and municipal officials would receive a $50 million federal grant to build 400 affordable housing units — playing up his attempts to lower rents in a state where housing costs are a critical political issue.
The president also talked about his administration’s efforts to ease the effects of extreme heat on the workforce, while continuing to lay into his opponent in November’s election.
“Trump says he doesn’t believe climate change is real. Maybe he should step out here in Vegas, where it’s 120 degrees, in his bare feet,” Biden said as the crowd hooted.
Biden is also proposing to cap rent increases at 5 percent for tenants whose landlords own over 50 units. If landlords hiked rents by more than that, they would lose access to some tax write-offs. But doing that would require congressional approval that Biden is unlikely to receive with a House Republican majority.
Trump has also used Nevada to float new economic policies. He said he would end taxes on the tips received by workers in the service-industry focused state, a concept that has since been endorsed by Nevada’s Democratic senators, Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto.