Four men were killed and two women injured in separate violent incidents in Quezon City Tuesday.
It was Christmas Day, but there was no peace on earth in Barangays Holy Spirit, Sta. Lucia, and Payatas, where the killings happened.
In Barangay Holy Spirit, construction worker Jayson Yago Esmer, 21, and his uncle Esteban Calbario Esmer, 46, a carpenter, were celebrating Christmas with relatives in front of their house on Kasiyahan Street early yesterday when a balaclava-wearing man walked up to them and opened fire with a handgun.
The two Esmers were each hit several times. Stray bullets hit Jayson Esmer’s mother, Marilyn Esmer, 50, in the left foot and a relative, Monica Reyes, in the hip.
The gunman, wearing a pink jacket, fled on foot after the shooting.
Jayson Esmer died while being treated at Malvar General Hospital. Esteban Esmer also died while being treated at East Avenue Medical Center.
Marilyn Esmer was confined at East Avenue Medical Center. Monica Reyes was discharged after receiving treatment.
Police investigators recovered nine casings for 9 mm bullets and a deformed bullet from the site of the shooting.
Police Officer 2 Rhic Roldan Pittong said the investigation had yet to establish a motive for the attack on the Esmers.
Longtime enemies
In Barangay Sta. Lucia, Danilo Castro, 58, and his distant nephew, Froilan de los Santos, 40, had an altercation on Christmas Eve and carried on until yesterday morning.
The two men came to blows, with De los Santos ending the encounter by whipping out a knife and stabbing Castro twice.
Castro died while being treated at FEU Hospital.
De los Santos surrendered to police.
PO2 Anthony Tejerero, case investigator, learned that the two men, although distant relatives, had been enemies for some time.
The cause of the animosity between the two men was unclear.
Death at the well
In Barangay Payatas, Federico Cabrega, 44, told his wife, Marites Cabrega, early yesterday morning that he would take a bath at a well on a vacant property near their house in Sitio Bakali.
He never returned. His body was found on the property at around 7:45 a.m. He had been stabbed several times. His skull had been bashed in.
PO2 Anthony Tejerero, case investigator, said Cabrega, a former taxi driver, worked as a police informer against a drug syndicate in Barangay Payatas.
Tejerero said Cabrega always took a bath at the well.
Tuesday morning, he said, a teenage boy went to Cabrega’s house and asked Marites Cabrega if her husband was at the well.
Alarmed, Marites Cabrega went to the well, where she saw blood on the well’s edge and a trail of blood on the ground.
She followed the trail of blood and found her husband’s body some 100 meters from the well.
Marites Cabrera told police that on the way to the well, she saw a half-naked man she only knew as Larry.
“The wife said the victim’s last job against a syndicate in their area did not go well,” Tejerero said, indicating the motive for the attack on Cabrega.
Police found a blood-stained rock, a pair of slippers, and a dirty shirt in the areas.
Tejerero said Marites Cabrega told investigators that the slippers and the shirt did not belong to her husband.
Tejerero said he believed the slippers and the shirt belonged to the man Marites Cabrega had seen before she found her husband’s body.