No foul play in cop shooting, women insist

TWO women who claimed to have seen the shooting incident between two policemen last Saturday evening took a polygraph test at the National Bureau of Investigation in Central Visayas (NBI-7) office yesterday.

In an interview, Natalie Apostol and Victoria Sasing said there was no foul play in the death of PO1 Anthony Gonzales and PO1 Rey Gabutan at Apostol’s home.

“The two policemen shot each other,” Apostol told reporters.

She said they didn’t expect Apostol and Gabutan to kill each other inside her home in barangay Guadalupe, Cebu City last Saturday.

“We were just sitting down when they fired at each other. The incident happened so quickly. So we were shocked,” Apostol said in Cebuano.

Sasing, who went to Apostol’s house to sell some delicacies, claimed she saw the shooting incident. “Wala gyuy foul play. (There really was no foul play),” she said.

Sasing saw the two policemen shoot each other before she ran away. The witnesses said the two policemen had an argument before PO1 Gonzales first shot PO1 Gabutan. In return, PO1 Gabutan shot PO1 Gonzales.

NBI-7 polygraph examiner Zari Zamora said they intend to invite two policemen who were at the scene of the crime to also undergo polygraph examination.

But he said it’s up to the two NBI-7 agents assigned to the case to ask PO3 Arnel Palanas and PO2 Lejay Gumandal to submit to testing.

Senior Supt. Mariano Natu-el, Cebu City police chief, said the final results of the paraffin and autopsy results will determine whether there was foul play.

The parents of Gabutan said they will only wait for the results of the NBI investigation on the shooting.

Emma Gabutan and her daughter Maryjane Gabutan also said they don’t hold a grudge against Gonzales’s loved ones over the death of Rey. Reporter Ador Vincent Mayol and Correspondents Tweeny M. Malinao and Chito Aragon