Military and police cannot deny the crime of 1001st IBde commander Brig. Gen. Jesus Durante III after evidence that he ordered the killing of businesswoman Yvonne Chua-Plaze was exposed to the public. Five soldiers of the 1001st IBde directly involved in the murder pointed to him as the mastermind of the crime. Chua-Plaza was shot in front of her house on December 30, 2022.

Apart from Durante, his vice commander Colonel Michael Licyayo and five other soldiers were implicated in the crime. Before this, relatives and friends of Chua-Plaza released messages from her cellphone exchanged between her and Durante, as well as photos of the businesswoman with bruises on her face and arms. In her messages, she explicitly named Durante as the perpetrator.

Chua-Plaza’s post included threats that she will expose the true story behind the military’s murder of Menardo Villanueva (Ka Bok) and Chad Booc. She
said she holds throves of evidence of what Durante did to Villanueva and Booc. Her post included a photo of Ka Bok’s lifeless body and said she had more similar photos.

Durante was assigned as commander of the 1001st IBde in August 2021 after serving as chief of the Presidential Security Group of then president Rodrigo Duterte. Earlier, he was part of the 1st Scout Ranger Battalion, and was chief of Task Force Davao.

Lying butcher

On February 24, 2022, Durante boasted of the 1001st IBde murder of teachers Chad Booc and Gelejurain Ngujo, together with civilians Elgyn Balonga, Tirso Añar and Robert Aragon in New Bataan, Davao de Oro. Durante insists that the five were killed in an encounter even as the local NPA unit denied that a firefight took place in the area. The autopsy of Booc’s cadaver revealed that he was summarily executed.

Durante also spewed lies surrounding the killing of three cadres of the Party in Southern Mindanao Region in a supposed encounter in 2022.

One of them is Villanueva who he said was killed in Barangay Libudon in Mabini, Davao de Oro on January 5, 2022. In truth, the 1001st IBde held Villanueva in custody since December 25, 2021. He was held incommunicado and tortured before being killed and surfaced dead. The butchers also summarily executed Sandra Reyes (Ka Kaye) who was likely abducted along with Ka Bok.

Another brutal case involving Durante and the 1001st IBde is the abduction, holding incommunicado and summary execution of Ezequiel Daguman (Ka Rey) in March 2022.