The parents of the the 16-year-old boy, who accidentally shot a 37-year-old trisikad driver in barangay Ermita, Cebu City, were told to convince their son to surrender.
In a phone interview, Senior Insp. Noel V. Lomente, chief of the Sawang Calero police precinct in Cebu City, said they received no word on the boy’s whereabouts from his parents.
The boy accidentally shot trisikad driver Mervin Belarde on the left side of his face while the victim was with friends along a road in barangay Ermita, Cebu City at past 7 p.m last Friday.
Belarde was treated and later discharged from the Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC). The shooting was one of two that happened in Metro Cebu over the weekend.
Last Saturday, a 14-year-old boy accidentally shot himself on his left thigh in barangay San Roque, Talisay City, Cebu.
The two shootings occurred barely a week after a 14-year-old boy was shot by another minor in Cebu City.
The 14-year-old was brought by his three friends at the Talisay City police precinct at 4 a.m. last Saturday.
Police said the boy gave a false name at first and was hesitant to tell them what happened.
Paramedics who treated the boy said it was possible that the boy’s gunshot wound was self-inflicted because of the presence of gunpowder on the wound.
The boy at first claimed that two persons riding a motorcycle shot him.
The 22. caliber was turned over by the boy’s 17-year-old friend and the boy was brought to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC). Police said the gun was unlicensed and home-made.
“We could no longer trace the owner of the .22 caliber because it was home-made,” said SPO1 Edgar Causon of the Talisay police in Cebuano.
Causon said the boy’s father works as a seaman and he lives with his step-mother in barangay Cansojong, Talisay City.
The boy’s mother said he would leave the house without telling her and stay in a friend’s house in barangay Tabunok. Causon said they will turn over the boy to social workers.
Supt. Eddie P. Recamara, Talisay City police chief, said they will conduct further investigation on how the boy managed to secure the firearm.
“We have to determine also the liability of the minor’s parents” Recamara said.
Both Recamara and Senior Supt. Melvin Buenafe said their police precincts are intensifying their Oplan Bakal campaign on loose firearms.
“So far we have successive operations and arrests of firearms bearing suspects, including an asset of a law enforcement agency whose .45 caliber was confiscated.” Buenafe told Cebu Daily News in a text message.
Lomente said they’ve arrested nine persons with loose firearms and confiscated 10 loose firearms as of January to May this year.
He said the number of confiscated firearms include the .38 caliber surrendered by the mother of the 11-year-old child offender who shot and injured the 14-year-old boy inside a billiard hall in barangay Pasil last May 19.
Buenafe said parents should be responsible gun owners and must lbe conscious always about their firearms in the house. “Guns must not be reachable by children,” he said. /Rhea Ruth V. Rosell, Reporter