CIDG agent killed in front of Pasig City residence
An agent of the Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group was declared dead on Friday after he was shot in front of his house in Barangay Caniogan, Pasig City, making him the fourth former or active PNP officer to be killed in Metro Manila since Sunday.
A police report said that PO2 Manuel Melendrez III, 48, was about to open the door to their house around 11:45 p.m. on Thursday when his wife, Shirley, who was still onboard their black van, heard multiple gunshots.
She immediately went out of the van and found her bloodied husband on the ground, the report added.
Senior Supt. Rizalito Gapas, chief of the Pasig City police, said Melendrez was shot in the back at least thrice.
No witnesses
Police rushed the victim to the Tri City Medical Center in Pasig but he was declared dead on arrival, the report said.
According to Gapas, investigators have yet to establish how many suspects were involved in the police officer’s slay as there had been no witnesses.
“There are closed-circuit television cameras in the area, however. That is what we are hoping to get,” he added.
Eastern Police District operatives had also recovered bullet casings belonging to a still unknown firearm at the crime scene.
Possible motives
Gapas said it was too early to say what the possible motives for Melendrez’s killing might have been, or whether it was connected to illegal drug trade.
On Monday, retired Chief Insp. Roberto Razon and PO1 Moises Reyan Llamas were both shot dead by unidentified motorcycle-riding gunmen in Pasay City and Makati City, respectively.
Razon, who was ambushed as he drove at the corner of Diokno Boulevard and Coral Way in Pasay City, was the chief of both the Quezon City Police District antidrug unit and former Regional Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Group.
Llamas, who was killed along with a police asset at Barangay Tejeros, Makati, was a member of the station drug enforcement team at the Santa Ana Police Station in Manila.
On Sunday, the chief of intelligence of the Pasay City police, Senior Insp. Manuel Taytayon, died in an alleged gunfight with an escaped detainee of Pasay City jail.
His father, also a police officer, has asked for multiple probes into the circumstances that led to Taytayon’s death.
