Stray bullet victim still in hospital

THE seminarian who was hit by a stray bullet during a car ambush in Consolacion town remains under observation in a Cebu City hospital a week following the failed attack.

Regenald, a sophomore high school student in the Blessed Pope John XXIII Seminary in Mabolo, Cebu City, remains in intensive care after doctors operated on him to remove a bullet in his skull.

The bullet entered his forehead and exited his nape.

Cebu Daily News is withholding the names of Regenald’s mother, cousin and neighbor for security purposes.

“Regenald is unaware of what happened to him,” said a neighbor, who visited him in the hospital, yesterday.

His mother said Regenald went to their store in front of their house and was on the road when the shooting occurred.

“His father fetched him from the seminary last Wednesday (Dec. 14) because he had an upset stomach,” she said.

Regenald was talking with his cousin when the shooting occurred.

The cousin said he was surprised when the victim fell on the floor bleeding.

Regenald’s parents and a neighbor brought Regenald to the Eversley Child Sanitarium Hospital in Mandaue City.

Regenald was transferred to a private hospital in Cebu City for further treatment.

“Thank God he’s still alive,” the mother said.

The mother recalled that Regenald was supposed to attend their school’s Christmas party last Friday.

But he failed to attend because he was still recuperating in the hospital where he is “under observation.”

“He (Regenald) loves to play basketball. He is also engaged in a drama presentation in school. Every time that he has a presentation (in school), he really wants me to come and watch. He’s a seminarian,” the mother said.

Despite the hospital bills, she said she was thankful that Regenald made it alive.

“We will continue praying for him,” she said.

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

The 43-year-old car owner Leden Tubongbanua, whose daughter survived unharmed in the back seat, told the police that he was the apparent target of the 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.

Tubongbanua, who has a buy-and-sell car business, voiced fears about his family’s safety to the police.

The car was on its way to Cebu City where the owner’s 16-year-old daughter was to attend a class in Velez College.

The sedan was riddled with six bullet holes in the driver’s window.

In a phone interview, Chief Insp. Wilbert B. Parilla, head of the Consolacion police, said that they are finalizing a cartographic sketch of the two assailants.

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

Regenald’s mother told Cebu Daily News that Tubongbanua’s 16-year-old daughter got out of the car after their driver was shot by the assailants.

“She got off the car and ran away. The gunman shot at her but misfired. The stray bullet hit my son instead,” Regenald’s mother told Cebu Daily News.

She recalled that the ambush was just 20 meters away from their sari-sari store. Rhea Ruth V. Rosell, Correspondent