“A plot seemingly hatched in hell.” With these unforgettable words, Judge Harriet Demetriou sealed the fate of a powerful local politician and his loyal henchmen, capturing the sheer demonic evil of a crime that has haunted the Philippines for over three decades. The case was the 1993 abduction, rape, and murder of 21-year-old University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) student Eileen Sarmenta, and the brutal killing of her 19-year-old friend, Allan Gomez. It remains a gruesome benchmark for the abuse of power, a story where a man’s infatuation was twisted into a death sentence by a machinery of corruption and depravity.

On the night of June 28, 1993, UPLB was winding down. Eileen had just bid her boyfriend goodnight, promising a quick visit to a friend’s dorm. On her way, she ran into Allan Gomez, her fraternity “brod,” who graciously offered her a ride in his Tamaraw van. It was a simple, kind gesture between friends—and it was their last. As they sat talking in a restaurant parking lot, their vehicle was ambushed by armed men. Forced into the back at gunpoint, the two terrified students were driven away, tailed by a mysterious ambulance, towards the Erais Farm in Calauan, Laguna—the private property of the town’s sitting mayor, Antonio Sanchez.

The abduction was no random act of violence; it was a meticulously planned operation. Eileen Sarmenta had been the object of Mayor Sanchez’s obsession for some time. As the van arrived at his farm, his men presented their horrific prize. “Mayor, this is our gift for you,” one of the abductors testified they said. “This is the woman you have long desired.”

Sanchez emerged from his rest house and surveyed his “gift.” “She’s beautiful,” he allegedly replied, before noticing Allan. “But who’s the guy with her?” His men explained that Allan was brought along so there would be no witnesses. With that, the night descended into unimaginable horror. Eileen was dragged into the mayor’s room. Outside, Allan was bound, gagged, and savagely beaten by the mayor’s security aides, who struck him with an Armalite until he collapsed.

Around 1:00 a.m., a broken Eileen emerged—her hair disheveled, her hands still tied, and no longer wearing her white shorts. Sanchez, his lust sated, then delivered a sickening command to his men. “Thanks for your gift, children,” he reportedly said. “I’m done now. She’s yours now. Do whatever you want.” When asked about Allan, he gave his blessing for the murder.

The victims were loaded back into the van. On the road, Allan Gomez was shot again and his bleeding body was unceremoniously dumped in a garbage pile. The convoy then proceeded to a sugarcane field. There, the mayor’s men—a group that included his security aides, his nephew, and even his houseboy—fulfilled their boss’s depraved order. They took turns raping the weeping Eileen. Despite her pleas for her life, she was not spared. One of the men, Luis Corcolon, shoved an object into her mouth and shot her in the face with an M16 rifle. Her body was left inside the abandoned van.

The perpetrators, confident in the mayor’s protection, embarked on a clumsy but audacious cover-up. The group was led by no less than Calauan’s Deputy Police Chief, George Medialdea. The next day, he and his men staged fake “discoveries” of the bodies, pretending to be the first responders. They even attempted to frame a general’s son from UPLB, but the lie was quickly exposed.

However, the arrogance of their power became their undoing. The ballistic report confirmed that bullet shells found with Allan’s body and metal fragments from Eileen’s wounds matched the M16 rifle issued to Luis Corcolon. The most damning evidence came from Eileen’s white shorts. The mayor had turned them in, claiming a resident found them. But investigators discovered a torn white belt loop at his farm’s rest house—a perfect fiber match to the tattered shorts in police custody.

The conspiracy completely unraveled when two of the men, ambulance driver Aurelio Centeno and security aide Vicencio Malabanan, turned state witnesses. Fearing for their lives, they laid bare the entire plot, pointing to Mayor Sanchez as the undisputed mastermind. Sanchez was arrested on August 13, 1993, his alibi of being with a mistress quickly collapsing under the weight of the evidence and testimony against him.

In March 1995, after a 16-month trial, Judge Demetriou found Sanchez and six of his men guilty, sentencing each to seven life terms. But the story did not end there. In prison, Sanchez showed no remorse, living a life of luxury in a private, air-conditioned cell with a flat-screen TV and access to illegal drugs. The nation’s outrage was reignited in 2019 when it was revealed that this unrepentant monster was eligible for early release under the Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) law. A firestorm of public protest, fueled by the hashtag #NoToSanchezRelease, forced the Department of Justice to intervene and declare him ineligible.

On March 27, 2021, Antonio Sanchez was found unconscious in his cell and was later declared dead. He died without ceremony, never once admitting his guilt for the hell he unleashed upon two innocent lives. While his death brought a form of closure, for many, the question remains: Has justice truly been served for Eileen Sarmenta and Allan Gomez?