Hardly a peaceful start for 2012

It was hardly a peaceful start of the new year in two Metro Manila cities with police reporting at least eight people getting killed either by stray bullets, shooting or stabbing incidents.

Two of the victims died from stray bullets, figures from the Manila Police District Tactical Operations Center showed.

One of the them was 7-year-old Angelica dela Cruz of Binondo who got hit by a stray bullet as she lay on her mother’s lap during the New Year revelry in the neighborhood.

Big surprise

Angelica’s mother, Cristina, told police she was surprised when moments after her daughter lay on her lap, she felt the girl trembling and gasping for breath.

When she checked, she saw the bullet wound on the left side of Angelica’s neck. She was brought to the hospital but was pronounced dead upon arrival there.

No witnesses could pinpoint who had shot the girl, but police believe it was a stray bullet as there was a neighborhood revelry in the area to greet the new year.

Police identified the other stray bullet victim as Josefina Tablan, 88, who was hit on the stomach while walking with her      daughter along Augusto Francisco street in Sta. Ana, Manila, around 4 a.m. Sunday.

She was rushed to a hospital but was also pronounced dead on arrival.

Police were checking reports that Tablan was hit by a bullet fired by one of the men involved in a gang fight in the area.

Shooting incidents

At least four people were reported killed in shooting incidents arising from brawls and New Year  revelries gone awry in Manila and Quezon City, police reports showed.

One of them, Fernando Mendoza, 17, of Barrio Obrero, Tondo, died of a single gunshot wound to the chest, in a brawl that started in a jeepney and ended near the gates of the Jose Reyes Memorial Medical

Center at the corner of Rizal Avenue and San Lazaro St. in Sta. Cruz district.

Police were able to nab three suspects in the shooting.

Meanwhile, DJ Pangilinan, 26, a pedicab driver from Balut, Tondo, was ganged upon and shot dead by two unidentified men just as he was enjoying the neighborhood New Year revelry in front of a church.

Pangilinan was suddenly approached by the two men, headlocked by one from behind, and shot in the chest by the other. The suspects fled on a motorcycle after the deed, reported Villareal.

Another Manila resident, Joseph Estrada, 23, of Baseco Compound in Manila, was shot in the head shortly after midnight as he was apparently coming home from a nearby New Year’s drinking spree with his friends, police said.

In Quezon City, a housewife, a trader and a call center agent were killed in a span of few hours after the beginning of the New Year, police reported.

Police identified the victims as Mariel Cezar-Pagaduan, 24, Ruel Rabino, 33, and Ronnel Dordas, 36.

Investigation showed that Pagaduan was shot in the head at around 3:30 a.m. as she was about to enter her house.

Police said the killer or killers must have vented their ire on her after they got involved in a street brawl in Tatalon where the victim lived.

Stabbing incidents

At around 4:30 a.m., police reported that businessman Rabino was stabbed in the chest and face by a neighbor whom the victim’s mother identified as a certain Albert Parino.

Rabino’s mother, Nelia, said her son accosted Parino and three others for smoking marijuana inside his owner-type jeep parked in front of their house in Barangay Talipapa, Quezon City.

At around 5:15 a.m. Sunday, police said Dordas, a call center employee, was stabbed along CP Garcia St., in Barangay UP Campus, while on his way back home from work.

The call center agent sustained a lone stab wound in the chest and was rushed to the Quirino Memorial Medical Center  where he died during treatment at around 6:15 a.m. With a report from Nancy Carvajal