In a phone interview, Senior Suerintendent Pascual Muñoz, Laguna police director, said the suspects, whose identities remained unknown, held a man at gunpoint and took away the victim’s motorcycle and mobile phone earlier on Tuesday evening.
The victim reported the robbery to a nearby police station, prompting a follow-up operation to track down the suspects.
Muñoz said the suspects, identified through the color of their jackets, fired at the chasing policemen as they reached the upland village of GSIS around 1:30 a.m. The policemen retaliated and shot the suspects dead.
Two of the suspects died on the spot while the third died an hour later in the hospital. Police recovered the stolen motorcycle and cellphone and three guns from the encounter site.
Earlier this January, 13 people were killed in a supposed shootout with policemen in Atimonan, Quezon. The incident turned into a controversy after the families of the fatalities claimed that it was a rubout.
“This was a legitimate operation. This one’s real,” Muñoz said, referring to the shootout on Wednesday.