BATANGAS, Philippines (May 18) — For more than a decade, the family of Polcie Brigadier General Hansel Marantan carried a wound that never fully healed.
On May 14, 2026, that long wait for justice finally moved one step closer to closure.
Authorities arrested Romualdo Atienza in Batangas, the last remaining suspect in the 2013 killing of Ariel Marantan, the younger brother of Joel Marantan and elder brother of Police Brigadier General Hansel Marantan.
“Relieved.”
It was the only word their elder Joel Marantan could utter after learning of the arrest, ending nearly 13 years of searching, court processes, and waiting for the law to finally catch up with the last fugitive linked to his brother’s murder.
Atienza was arrested by virtue of a non-bailable warrant for murder issued by Judge Eleuterio L. Bathan of the Regional Trial Court Branch 15 in Lemery, Batangas on July 15, 2014.
He was among three men ordered arrested in connection with the fatal shooting of Ariel Marantan on August 26, 2013.
Court records showed Ariel, then 47 years old, was inside a mango plantation in Barangay Talaga, Lemery, Batangas when two motorcycle-riding gunmen opened fire around 10:30 in the morning.
Investigators had long explored a land dispute as among the possible motives behind the killing.
Family members said Ariel had gone to the property to help a friend protect the land amid tensions surrounding the area.
But while the suspects disappeared into hiding, the grief remained inside the Marantan family.
The arrest carried deeper emotional weight because at the time Ariel was murdered, then Colonel Hansel Marantan himself was detained inside a custodial facility together with several police officers over the controversial Atimonan shootout case.
While facing his own legal battle and public scrutiny, the police officer who once led dangerous anti-criminality operations could do little as his own family struggled to seek justice for Ariel’s death.
“After nearly 13 years in hiding, an assassin of my brother Ariel is now finally behind bars, the last one to be arrested. This is real justice for us,” Brig. Gen. Marantan said.
For the Marantan family, the arrest was more than the capture of a fugitive.
It was the closing of a chapter marked by silence, grief, and unanswered pain.
Because behind the headlines, the operations, and the controversies surrounding one of the country’s most polarizing police officers was another story rarely seen by the public: that of a family mourning a brother whose killers remained free for more than a decade.
And for 13 years, justice arrived slowly.-Editha Z Caduaya
Edith Z Caduaya studied Bachelor of Science in Development Communication at the University of Southern Mindanao.
The chairperson of Mindanao Independent Press Council (MIPC) Inc.
