LAGIM: A Filipino True Crime

On 11th October 2011, some residents of Brgy Putho-Tuntungin in Los Baños, Laguna woke up to a horrible discovery in one of their canals. It was the body of a young woman who seemed to have been murdered only a few hours before. This discovery would send shockwaves all throughout the municipality of Los Baños, best known for the University of Los Baños, a top state university that sits in an open...

In September 2017, a family was left waiting and then reeling when reports emerged that their son has died as a result of hazing. A once brilliant light in his family's life, Atio's star was extinguished so prematurely after going through the intiation rites of teh Aegis Juris Fraternity, a fraternity based and supported by the University of Santo Tomas Law School. Atio's death sparked media outra...

It was 2021 and most of the world was still in the tight grip of the COVID-19 pandemic that started the year before. Countries had implemented strict lockdowns. Life as we knew it came to a grinding halt and we were being bombarded by daily updates of COVID deaths, as if it was just a part of our lives then. It was therefore all the more jarring when news out of the UK talked of a missing Filipina...

In 2006, two UP Diliman students and an elderly farmer from Hagonoy, Bulacan were forcibly taken, abducted and illegally detained in secret military facilities as a part of a crackdown on activists suspected of supporting the military arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the NPA or National People's Army. The three desaparecidos' case would come to highlight a deeply corrupt military sys...

In October 1994, friends of Emelita Villa Reeves woke up, not having heard from their friend for over 24 hours. The last moments they had with her were worrying. Emelita always answered or returned calls and page notifications, so why was she not doing this now? When people finally paid attention to Emelita's disappearance, they would uncover a history that seemed to show a disturbing pattern of b...

Hello LagimFam! Finally, I back on the podcast saddle and can continue with Season 4. Today's episode covers a case from 1964 - a case that would become notorious for the largest inter-agency investigation conducted at that time. At the centre of this case are two families from Quezon City and Guagua, Pampanga. What started out as a seemingly crime of opportunity would eventually unfold as so much...

This week's episode takes us to Barangay Cabayaoasan in Paniqui, Tarlac where in December 2020 a video was recorded of a horrible crime that would shock Filipinos mere days before Christmas. Still in the middle of a ravaging pandemic, the people of Cabayaoasan would suddenly be pushed into the spotlight because of the deed of one policeman - a deed that cost the lives of two people. Listen to Lagi...

In July 2001, the quiet Sydney suburb of North Ryde was rattled awake by a triple murder that seemed to have been the result of a robbery gone wrong. Little did they know that these murders were in the making for so long and could be traced back to Baguio, Philippines. For its first episode for Season 4, Lagim: A Filipino True Crime Story presents a story from the diaspora. It is a story of expect...

For the past year, I have been following this case closely. Something about the circumstances surrounding this case deeply bothered me from the very beginning. I followed reports and articles written about Bree and her death for over a year now and have collated all these reports in blog posts in Lagim's blog. I have now used these reports to put together a sort of case review in this episode, in...

On the 5th August 2022, a young student from Palawan went missing. Three weeks later, a shocking discovery near her hometown opened more questions than there are answers. This is a rather sad and terrifying case where the motive of the alleged perpetrators remains unclear. I have recorded this almost two weeks ago and have had to already edit this audio to include a recent update. There will be mo...

LagimFam, it is time for another season finale. In this season ender, we go back to the 1960s to look into one of the more prominent true crime cases before true crime was even a thing. In this episode, I look into the Cabading Family Murders and I also briefly discuss Filipino family dynamics and the topic of family annihilator again but this time with a male perpetrator in mind. I relied heavily...

This week's case is a case from the diaspora. A listener suggested this case through the case suggestion list and I am glad I was able to cover it. The case is about a Filipino-American family in California who was considered unassuming and very much run of the mill. At least for those looking from the outside looking in. But all was not well, especially for mother Annamaria Gana who in 2010 recei...

***MASSIVE TRIGGER WARNING due to multiple graphic references to child sexual abuse***In 1996, the Philippines was rocked by news of a prominent congressman from Zamboanga del Norte, being accused of multiple counts of rapes and other sexual offences against an 11-year-old girl. Congressman Jalosjos instantly became that person every parent warned their children about. For the young girl at the ce...

In August 2017, young Kian delos Santos was killed during an anti-drug raid conducted in a poor neighbourhood in Caloocan. What the police hoped to just be another night full of dead bodies on the streets, quickly turned into a watershed moment that exposed the brutality, consequences and casualties of former President Duterte's war on drugs. To learn about this case, listen now to the whole episo...

In this episode of Lagim, I re-explore the case of Caroline Crouch. I have featured this last year on my old Patreon and back then the trial in this case had not started yet. Even though most details from trial are things that were covered profusely in the media, it was nevertheless good to have a look at this case again a year after the tragedy that affected a Filipino-British family in Greece. I...

In the telling of Filipino history, the stories and heritage of the Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines are often missed if not completely erased. This is very much our loss because the Indigenous Peoples of our country are a small looking glass into which we could see a future that we could have had, had colonialism not happened. They stand for protecting ancestral lands, nature and for continu...

In this episode of Lagim, I am featuring two cases involving two heroes who were taken from this world too soon and in the most brutal of ways. Both Liliosa Hilao and Archimedes Trajano were young students who stood up to the Marcos Regime and its agents and then paid dearly for it. Listen now to know their stories here at Lagim: A Filipino True Crime PodcastCover art photo cred: Canva, Twitter, H...

In September 1974, the sleepy municipality of Palimbang would be rattled awake by cannons being dropped by army units aboard naval ships. What followed were days of torture, violence, starvation and a massacre that would forever traumatise a whole generation of Moros in the midst of Marcos's martial law regime. Listen now to the whole story here at Lagim: A Filipino True Crime PodcastCover art pho...

In the evening of 25th April 1990, life as the Bernabe and Castaños families knew it would change forever. When news of their son and daughter's abduction reached them, they initially had hoped to find young Cochise and Beebom, two bright students who studied law and mass communications at the University of the Philippines, respectively. But the young couple would never come back home. During the...

At the crack of dawn on 7th March 2021, the PNP and the Philippine army conducted a simultaneous attack on groups and individuals connected to certain leftist and human rights groups who were suspected of having connections to communist insurgents in Calabarzon. What followed was a backlash so intense that it raised questions yet again about the current administration's way of dealing with those w...

The Ecleo Family of the Dinagat Islands have built a religious and political realm that remained and still remains undefeated to this day. But in 2002, the leader and divine master Ruben Ecleo Jr became involved in crimes that would shake not only the membership of his religious group but the whole nation as well. To learn more about this case, listen now to the whole story here on Lagim: A Filipi...

On the 23rd August 2010, a humdrum Monday in the Philippine capital quickly turned into a day of disaster when disgraced police officer Rolando Mendoza decided to take hostage a bus full of tourists. Years later many debated whether the crisis that ensued could have been averted, owing to the many missteps that were taken in the management of the crisis. To learn more about this case, listen now t...

In February 2019, Bem was bathing her 4-year-old daughter when she noticed something odd about her little body. Bem would not know right away that this moment would become the starting point of a harrowing, emotionally and mentally challenging journey in her family's life. This journey will not only challenge her view of the world but also one of the most powerful religious institutions on the pla...

Just before Christmas 2021, the Maguad Family would be hit by a tragedy so horrific that it captured the attention of the whole nation. In the span of a single afternoon, the lives of two young and promising people were destroyed and no one knew who was responsible. Whilst the police were sent on what felt like a wild goose chase, searching for two or perhaps three mystery men, the danger was actu...

Welcome to the third season of LAGIM: A Filipino True Crime Podcast! For the next 30 weeks or so, I am hoping to deliver some very interesting stories, some of which will transcend the usual true crime material. For episode one, I will be taking you through the newest controversies involving the embattled religious leader and self-appointed Son of God,  Apollo Quiboloy and his Kingdom of Jesus Chr...