A man tagged as one of Pasig City’s top drug suspects was shot dead by the police inside his home allegedly because he resisted arrest and fired at the officers, while four men and a woman were found dead also in Pasig, San Juan, Mandaluyong and Parañaque cities on Thursday.
They were the latest additions to the growing body count that now worries human rights advocates and critics of President Duterte’s anticrime drive, which they say practically endorses the extrajudicial killing of suspects who are denied due process.
Felix Manlangit was only in his underwear when he allegedly exchanged fire with members of the Pasig Police Community Precinct 1, who came to his house on Banaag Street, Barangay Pineda, at 4:30 a.m. Thursday to serve an arrest warrant.
His live-in partner, who ended up being arrested, denied that Manlangit fought back, saying he didn’t even own a gun.
In an interview, Senior Supt. Jose Hidalgo, the city’s police chief, said the 52-year-old Manlangit was ordered arrested by Judge Danilo Cruz of Pasig Regional Trial Court on charges of illegal possession of firearms.
“He is not just small fry; he is a big-time drug dealer,” Hidalgo said of the slain suspect, who wielded a .38-caliber pistol.
The arresting team told him to surrender but he refused and even fired at the officers, forcing them to retaliate, according to investigator PO3 Melvin Mendoza.
The police arrested Rosalinda Failangca, Manlangit’s live-in partner, after a search of their bedroom yielded a kilo of “shabu” kept in different plastic containers, various drug paraphernalia and a stash of marijuana. The shabu alone could fetch P2 million in the streets, Hidalgo added.
Speaking to the Inquirer, the detained Failangca admitted that her partner sold and used drugs—and that she had been trying to convince him to surrender.
But she denied the police version of how Manlangit died. “They forced their way in. Everything happened so fast. We were both asleep and just in our underwear. He (Manlangit) was not even given the chance to put his clothes on,” Failangca added.
She said the police dragged Manlangit out of their bedroom and that she later heard “‘three shots” within the house. The next moment, she saw the dead Manlangit already being brought out on a stretcher.
‘Packaged’ bodies
Also in Pasig, the body of an apparent victim of summary execution was found by a street sweeper around 5 a.m. Thursday on F. Flores Street, Barangay Buting.
The victim, identified at press time as “Onpol,” was a known drug pusher in the area, said the case investigator, PO3 Al Alvarez.
The corpse was found with a sign in Filipino saying: “I’m a pusher, holdup man, car thief. Bye! Onpol.”
In Mandaluyong, another dead man was dumped on the sidewalk along the southbound lane of Edsa, near the Securities and Exchange Commission building in Barangay Wack Wack.
Found around 4:50 a.m., the body was wrapped with packaging tape and stuffed in a black plastic bag, with a piece of wire forming a noose around the neck. The victim was described to be 35 to 40 years old.
In San Juan City, two more bodies were found in separate locations in a span of an hour.
The first victim was identified by a relative as Marcilina Ballares, 42, whose body was found on Soisson Street, Barangay Sta. Lucia, around 3:30 am., according to PO2 Karl Sawey of the San Juan police.
Ballares’ face was also wrapped with packaging tape. Sawey said eight plastic sachets of shabu and “a notebook”—purportedly containing a list of names and corresponding numbers—were found beside the body.
Around 2:50 a.m., another body of a man was discovered along G. Soriano Street, Barangay Kabayanan, San Juan. A tricycle driver found a corpse hogtied and the face also wrapped with packaging tape. Eight sachets of suspected shabu were also recovered beside the body.
In Parañaque, Roberto Frias was shot and killed around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday on Peru Street, Barangay Don Bosco, by two unidentified gunmen who stalked him on a motorbike.
The city police chief, Senior Supt. Jose Carumba, said Frias was on the city’s drug watch list along with his wife, Malou, alias “Malou Negra.” Authorities could no longer locate her as of Thursday.
“I believe we have already knocked on their door,” Carumba said, alluding to the antidrug campaign Oplan Tokhang, wherein the police go to the homes of known drug suspects in a community to personally persuade them to surrender.