Cebu trader’s ambush tied to ‘masiao’

CEBU CITY—Police are linking the attack on a businessman here to the operations of illegal numbers game syndicates.

The attack on businessman Edgar Lim, 49, resident of Barangay Day-As here, is being linked to rivalry between operators of “masiao” and “swertres,” two illegal numbers games popular in the province of Cebu and other parts of the Visayas.

Chief Insp. Romeo Santander, head of the city police’s intelligence branch, said he believed Lim’s ambush was related to the illegal numbers games.

Lim was shot and wounded by motorcycle-riding suspects while he was driving his BMW on South Coastal Road here on Thursday.

According to Santander, Lim and 25 other people were arrested in a raid last month on Lim’s house on General Maxilom Avenue in an anti-illegal gambling operation. Lim and the others were caught tallying results of an illegal numbers game.

Last month’s raid led to the seizure of illegal gambling paraphernalia, copying machines, fax machines, tally sheets and stubs with number combinations. Police also seized firearms and ammunition.

Charges were filed against Lim, but he was able to post bail.

SPO4 Rey Cuyos, police homicide investigator, said Lim was still able to call his wife, Viola, after he was shot by one of two men on board a motorcycle as he drove through the tunnel at the South Coastal Road.

Cuyos said Lim had asked his wife to bring him to the hospital.

Viola said her husband asked her to meet him on General Maxilom Avenue here.

Before Viola could reach the area, Lim was spotted by Renato Generoso, area supervisor of the Cebu City Integrated Traffic Operations Management, who was in the vicinity of J. de Vera Street corner General Maxilom Avenue, Barangay Carreta, to inspect traffic signs past 5 p.m.

Generoso requested  paramedics from  Emergency Rescue Unit Foundation. But Viola arrived ahead of the paramedics and brought her husband to a private hospital.

There were two bullet holes at the right side of the back of the car while the rear right window and the rear windshield were broken, said Leonides Casul of the scene of the crime operatives.

Casul said they did not recover any slug from the crime scene.

But he said they found inside Lim’s car two small packs of suspected shabu and a fighting cock placed in a native woven bag.

Illegal gambling in many parts of the country is a thriving underworld trade worth billions of pesos.

In Central Luzon, jueteng continues unabated and police are unable to put a stop to it, raising suspicions that many police officers are on the take from illegal gambling syndicates.