The Marikina City police have arrested and charged one of the four men who opened fire early Thursday on a group of teenagers that included the grandson of comedian Willie Nepomuceno.
The suspect identified as Mark Bercilla was arrested in Barangay Marikina Heights in the afternoon that same day with the help of a witness who got the license plate number of the white Ford Fiesta used by the suspects, according to the Eastern Police District director, Chief Supt. Miguel Laurel.
The shooting wounded Sean Gabriel Nepomuceno, 16; and Franc Rayven Jocson, 17. Their friends Angello Abistado, 19; and Sherwin Jerome Maralit, 19, were unhurt.
During inquest proceedings on Friday, Abistado, Jocson and Maralit confirmed that Bercilla was one of the attackers who fired at them as they were eating at a burger stand around 2:50 a.m. in Marikina Heights. Also present at the Marikina prosecutor’s office was Nepomuceno’s father, Willie Wilsson.
Complaints for frustrated murder, physical injuries and grave threats were filed against Bercilla, according to Jovian Dumlao, a lawyer for the Nepomucenos.
Willie Wilsson maintained that the incident was a case of mistaken identity, noting that his son and his friends didn’t know the arrested suspect and that they rarely went to the burger stand where they were attacked.
“Normally at night they would meet outside but just near our house. But that night we (the boys’ parents) didn’t know they decided to go somewhere else,” he said.
The elder Nepomuceno said Sean, who was hit in the stomach and hip bone, was already in stable condition at the hospital after undergoing three surgeries.
“We don’t know if there is still danger, but there is a significant improvement from [Thursday]. He can also talk now,” the father said, adding that his son had to be fed through a tube, causing him pain in the throat. Nathaniel R. Melican