Authorities have identified the two other suspected members of a gun-for-hire gang killed in a shootout with policemen on Katipunan Avenue in Barangay Heights, Quezon City, before dawn on Sunday.
Reynel Bautista Dizon and Jobert Dizon Gonzales, both 22 years old and construction workers, were the neighbors of Perfecto (not Recto as earlier reported by the police) Quiambao Piadozo, 61, the first to be identified based on an identification card found in his possession. Only the fourth suspect has yet to be identified.
The four alleged hit men were killed in a firefight with Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) operatives who had earlier received a tip that the group, using a stolen vehicle, were to carry out a hit in the Cubao area.
Recovered from them were three pistols, a hand grenade, a knife and a Honda Accord with license plate USH 888 that had been reported missing by its owner.
Senior Insp. Elmer Monsalve, Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit homicide section chief of the Quezon City Police District, said the four were apparently neighbors at Barangay San Miguel na Munti in Talavera, Nueva Ecija.
Monsalve told reporters that relatives of the suspects who claimed their bodies over the weekend denied knowing that their kin were hired killers.
Their families said that the last time they saw the four men together was on Friday when they left Nueva Ecija to go on an “errand,” Monsalve added.
According to Monsalve, they were continuing their investigation to confirm the suspects’ background although earlier, the CIDG said that the four men were behind the killing of taxi driver Alberto Labasbas, who was shot dead at a gas station in Valenzuela City on Jan. 27. Jaymee T. Gamil