Village head mistakenly kills godchild

KIDAPAWAN CITY, Philippines—A village head in Magpet, North Cotabato, came to grief when he realized it was his own godchild he shot and killed after mistaking her for a bad guy outside his house on a particularly dark night because of Mindanao’s frequent brownouts.

Sylvestre Reyes, 60, chair of Barangay Bongolanon, Magpet, North Cotabato is now detained at the police station and faces a homicide charge.

Senior Insp. Elias Colonia, police chief of Magpet, said Reyes shot Elena Isabelli, 24,  whom he mistook for a robber or rapist being hunted by the authorities.

Colonia said Isabelli and her mother went to Reyes’ house at around 1 a.m. Thursday to ask for help because unidentified men had been knocking on their door.

Although Reyes queried behind the door who they were and what they wanted, the two women remained silent, causing the village leader to suspect they are armed men village authorities were looking for in connection with rape and burglary cases in the area, Colonia said.

Reyes brought out his Garand rifle and, using the backdoor of his house, went around and saw two persons standing in front of his house.

He said he could not identify them as the village was experiencing power outages. Again, according to Reyes, the two persons did not answer his calls as to who they were, so he opened fire, hitting Elena in the chest.

Colonia said that the women did not respond to Reyes’ queries because they did not recognize his voice and they were scared.

After realizing his mistake, Reyes surrendered to the police.

Earlier that evening, Reyes led members of the neighborhood watch in a hunt for a group of men who had been taking advantage of the power outages to rape women and break into homes to steal.