Car owner admits he’s ambush target

The car owner whose daughter survived Thursday morning’s ambush in barangay Tayud, Consolacion town, northern Cebu, told police he was the apparent target of two unidentified motorcycle-riding assailants.

Chief Insp. Wilbert Parilla, Consolacion police chief, said a personal grudge may be behind the attack, which left the family driver dead.

Police said the car owner, 43-year-old Leden Tubongbanua told them that an armed man went looking for him at the office of his business partner in barangay Imus, Cebu City.

No other details were shared.

Parilla said they secured two witnesses to testify about the ambush but withheld their names for security purposes.

The ambush resulted in the death of 40-year-old family driver Joel Hallazgo.

“He (Tubongbanua) is still hesitant to tell us more but he said that he knows that he was the target of the ambush and the motive was due to a personal grudge,” said Parilla.

Tubongbanua, who has a buy-and-sell car business, fears for the safety of his family, said police.

His 16-year-old daughter, who was in the back seat of the car, was unharmed but the incident traumatized her.

“If she needs assistance from the DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development), we can recommend a social worker to help her,” Parilla said.

Meanwhile, a 15-year-old bystander who was hit in the neck by a stray bullet is still in critical condition in a private hospital.

Hallazgo, the family driver, died of several gunshot wounds after two men on a motorcycle drove up to his side and opened fire at the vehicle, a maroon Toyota Vios sedan.

In a previous interview, Parilla said the assailants were already waiting outside the Marian village around 50 meters away.

The backrider drew a 9mm-caliber firearm and shot the driver several times.

The car was on its way to Cebu City where the owner’s daughter was to attend a class in Velez College.

The sedan was riddled with six bullet holes in the driver’s window. Correspondent Rhea Ruth V. Rosell