Pampanga's "Sisig Queen" murdered

By Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon

ANGELES CITY--Local culinary legend Lucia "Lucing" Cunanan, who brought the traditional "sisig" to fame, was stabbed and killed by unknown attackers on Wednesday in her home on C. M. Recto St. here, police said.

The suspects stabbed Cunanan at least 10 times in different parts of the body, Chief Insp. Jaime Villamil, chief of the Angeles City police's Station 6, said, citing initial police findings. The instrument, probably a knife, was not found in the bedroom where Cunanan, 80, was killed. Her white bag, gold necklace and ring were missing, it was learned.

Zeny, Cunanan's eldest daughter, said her father Victorino, 85, left the house at 4:30 a.m. to buy breakfast. When he returned home at about 5 a.m., he found Cunanan bloodied and dead while slumped on a chair in their bedroom. Zeny told reporters that the suspects might have used a hammer to smash her mother's face.

Villamil said a hammer was not found in the bedroom and the multiple wounds indicated that the suspects used a sharp object. Barangay Capt. Valentino Lagman said a neighbor of the Cunanans saw a man in red shirt walking several times in front of the house a few minutes before the murder.

Zeny said some relatives had a quarrel with Cunanan over money matters.

But she refused to link that incident to the murder. "We are very sad that this had happened. Our mother was kind and she had no enemy as far as we knew," Zeny told reporters.

Cunanan began her sisig business in 1974 on a small stall along Crossing, a strip of rickety eateries and bars beside the old railroad tracks in Angeles City.

"Apung Lucing" is how that stall is called until now even it has now occupied three adjacent stalls.