Pinoy guard on Saipan found dead

SUSUPE, Saipan – A Filipino security guard in the US island of Saipan was found dead on Tuesday morning at the entrance to the school where he was assigned, barely a few days after three other overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) here died in a car crash. Efren Ballesteros, a security guard at Marianas High School (MHS), was found lying in a pool of blood in a hallway on campus. Police said there is evidence Ballesteros was beaten up possibly as a result of a break-in at the school, where several classrooms were burglarized. Preliminary investigation showed that the security guard died due to blunt trauma. Classes at MHS – the largest high school on Saipan – were called off on Tuesday and will remain suspended until Wednesday to prevent students from going inside the campus. Ballesteros, an employee of Global Security Agency, was on night duty at MHS when police say he was killed. He and his wife Adelaida Abella, also an OFW, had been on Saipan since 1992. They were supposed to have a christening for their five-month-old son on Sunday. Their other son, a 12-year-old, is attending junior high school. Police are investigating the homicide, as well as the burglary on campus. The NMI Crime Stoppers Program has also offered up to $1,000 cash reward to anyone who can provide information about the homicide that will lead to an arrest. Ballesteros is the fourth OFW on Saipan reported dead this week. Three others – Hydee G. Garcia, 26, Ronald Carreon, 35, and Rose Ann O. Bautista, 22 – were killed when their car slammed into a power pole at past 2 a.m. on Sunday. Carreon, a computer technician, died on the spot, while Garcia died about an hour after she was rushed to the hospital. Bautista died a day later at the hospital. The only survivor in the car crash, Joel O. Tagalicud, 30, is still recuperating from injuries. Just like Ballesteros, the three worked on Saipan, the capital of the US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, where some 10,000 Filipinos and Filipino-Americans live and work. - GMANews.TV