Peacemaker killed in Manila
A 37-year-old glass cutter was shot and killed on Sunday evening when he attempted to pacify two groups of warring teenagers in his neighborhood in Manila. Elvis Espina, a resident of Area C Gate 54 in Parola Compound, Binondo, was declared dead on arrival by attending doctors at Gat Andres Bonifacio Memorial Hospital due to a gunshot wound in the chest. His alleged shooter, a 17-year-old neighbor, fled afterward and is now being sought by the police. Senior Police Officer 1 Charles John Duran of the Manila Police District homicide section said the shooting took place at around 7:30 p.m. on Sunday while the victim was walking home. When he came across two groups of warring teenagers, he tried to intervene but one of the boys, apparently irked by his action, shot him in the chest. The shooter fled while Espina was rushed by his neighbors to the hospital. Policemen said that the victim was shot at close range based on the powder burns around the gunshot wound. They added that they were conducting follow-up operations for the arrest of the teenage shooter.—Jeannette I. Andrade
Gamblers with fake cash nabbed
Two women were arrested after they were discovered to be feeding fake money into a bingo machine at a mall in Quezon City. They were identified as Bailinang Zainal, 37; and Joan Martiny Trinidad, 29, both residents of Taguig City, according to a report from the Quezon City Police District Station 2. Police Officer 2 Marlon Tan said the two women entered the bingo outlet inside SM North Edsa in Quezon City at around noon on Saturday. They started playing on the electronic bingo game machine where they won several times, earning hundreds of pesos. Security guards at the mall, however, became suspicious of the women’s actions. They stopped the two women from playing and opened the bingo machine to recover the money they fed into the equipment. A check of the peso bills inside the machine showed that these were fake. Policemen later recovered 28 pieces of fake P500 bills and a total of P4,598 in cash from the two women.—Penelope Endozo