2 barangay officials jailed for killing drunk man
Manila policemen arrested two barangay officials, one of whom shot dead a drunken man in his home shortly after he allegedly ran amuck in a Tondo neighborhood early Saturday morning.
In their defense, Barangay 108-Zone 8 Councilor Albert Valenzona and his fellow official Jessy Roncal claimed that Valenzona shot the victim, 32-year-old Ronnie de Guzman, by accident.
But De Guzman’s widow Maritess had a different story, saying Valenzona killed her husband while he was asleep.
SPO2 Virgo Villareal of the Manila Police District (MPD) homicide section, said the incident happened at around 2 a.m. yesterday inside De Guzman’s house on Capulong Street.
Hours earlier, De Guzman allegedly stabbed a drinking buddy in the arm with a pair of scissors before going home. The incident prompted Valenzona, Roncal and a team from MPD Raxabago station to rush to the scene.
In an interview with the Inquirer, Maritess said that when the policemen and the two village officials arrived at her house and asked for her husband, she told them he was indeed drunk and was already asleep on the roof.
“The policemen asked me to tell my husband to surrender without a fight, but while I was going upstairs to the second floor to reach the roof, Kuya Al (Valenzona) pushed me aside and stopped me,” Maritess said.
Moments later, a gunshot was heard from the roof. When she and the policemen got there, Maritess said, her husband was already dead with a bullet hole in the head and near him was Valenzona holding a .45-caliber pistol.
She also claimed that one of the two barangay officials tried to place a fan knife next to her husband’s body.
“(Valenzona) simply told me that he didn’t mean to shoot (my husband),” the widow recalled. “But the policemen arrested him and his companion.”
Interviewed in his cell, Valenzona maintained: “I slipped on the roof and the gun went off and accidentally hit him.”
Asked why he didn’t just let the policemen carry out the arrest of De Guzman, he said he thought the victim “would recognize me and would surrender peacefully.”
