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Emmanuel Tupas - The Philippine Star
February 8, 2026 | 12:00am
Crime scene investigators use metal detectors in a grassy field along the Pulilan-Baliuag bypass road in Bulacan yesterday to search for the firearm used in the killing of Senior M/Sgt. Diane Marie Mollenido. Inset photo from the NCRPO shows officers arresting a suspect in the killing of the policewoman and her eight-year-old son during an operation the other night.
Michael Varcas
MANILA, Philippines — After a week of extensive search, police recovered on Friday night the firearm allegedly used in the killing of M/Sgt. Diane Mollenido.
The weapon, a .45-caliber handgun, was found inside the house of the mother of Christian Panganiban in Barangay Kaligayahan, Quezon City.
Panganiban, a dismissed policeman, is one of the prime suspects in Mollenido’s murder. His wife car agent Pia Katrina Panganiban was also tagged in the case.
His brother, Jacinto, informed police about the gun in their mother’s premises, prompting investigators to visit the residence.
Police recovered the gun, three magazines and 55 bullets, which they turned over to the Quezon City Police District Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit.
The search for the weapon earlier reached Pulilan town in Bulacan, where Mollenido’s body was dumped.
Investigation showed that Mollenido, 38, and her eight-year-old son John Ysmael, were killed in Panganiban’s house in Barangay San Agustin in Quezon City on Jan. 16.
Investigators said Panganiban shot Mollenido in the head. The boy was allegedly choked to death by the Panganiban couple. His body was later found in a farm in Victoria, Tarlac.
The Panganiban couple, their helper Gil Dy Jr. and the former policeman’s sister, Maribel, are facing cases of robbery with homicide and theft before the Quezon City prosecutor’s office.
The preliminary investigation of the cases for the couple and Dy started on Friday.
Maribel was not present in the proceedings as another prosecutor will handle the preliminary investigation of her cases.
