Student among 13 killed in 5 cities
POLICE operations and vigilante-style attacks racked up 13 kills in five cities from Sunday night to Monday afternoon.
Four of the fatalities were in the slums of Binondo, Manila, where the local police said they were just distributing leaflets in line with the Oplan Tokhang antidrug campaign when they were provoked into shooting some male residents.
The Quezon City police, meanwhile, killed two men who they said were armed drug users planning to rob a convenience store. In Marikina City, a buy-bust operation ended in the suspect’s death after he allegedly resisted arrest and initiated a shootout.
In Caloocan City, masked gunmen on motorbikes struck in different locations and left five residents dead, including a 17-year-old criminology student. And once again the streets of Pasay served as dumping ground for a man’s corpse, with a sign calling him a robber and a drug addict.
According to a Manila Police District official, members of the MPD-Meisic station were distributing leaflets in Parola Compound, Binondo, on Monday afternoon when they were met with gunfire from a cluster of riverside shanties called Batuhan.
Chief. Inspector Fernando Reyes, head of the San Nicolas precinct, said the officers returned fire and killed one of the two shooters, later identified as Gerry Tagalog. The second shooter escaped by diving into the river that was filled with water hyacinth, Reyes said in an interview.
But another resident, later identified only as Jon-Jon, also fired at the police from a house 10 meters away from Tagalog’s shanty. “A burst of gunfire greeted (the officers making up) Group B,” Reyes said.
The retaliating officers killed Jon-Jon. When they entered his shanty, Reyes said, they found another man, Mar Barquillo, who was also shot and killed on the spot when he “tried to grab” an officer’s firearm.
Caloocan victims
They also encountered Jessie Panis, who ran and hid inside the house of Raquel Oviado. Panis was also shot dead by the police because he held Oviado’s teenage daughter hostage, Reyes said.
In Tala, Caloocan, masked men attacked couple Mark Anthony Gonzales and Danica Sobrepena inside their house on Camia Street, Barangay 185, around 7 p.m. Sunday.
In an interview, Senior Supt. Johnson Almazan, the city police chief, said “a witness who refused to be identified said the (slain) couple were involved in the illegal drug trade.”
About half an hour later, 27-year-old Daniel Albaño met the same fate at his home in Santo Cristo, Barangay 187. Again, Almazan cited an unnamed witness saying Albaño was also into drugs.
Bernard Paligano of Paras Street, Barangay 14, was shot dead outside a relative’s house around 10 p.m. Sunday, while 17-year-old Albert Samson of Kabulusan II, Barangay 20, died at the hands of eight men who barged into his house around 2:30 a.m. the following day.
Samson was a criminology student at University of Caloocan City, according to Almazan.
‘X’ marks QC robbery target
In Quezon City, the police said two robbery suspects—who were also found carrying packets of “shabu”
—were killed Sunday night as they were about to rob a convenience store in Barangay Holy Spirit.
A report from the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) said members of the District Special Operations Unit were conducting a surveillance operation on Holy Spirit Drive when they stopped at a Family Mart outlet to buy refreshments around 11 p.m.
They then saw two “suspicious-looking” men who got off a motorcycle and walked toward the store. When the policemen approached, the two men allegedly drew their guns and fired at the officers.
A closed-circuit television footage caught the suspects in the act of firing at the policemen.
The two suspects were wounded in the exchange of gunfire and were declared dead on arrival at East Avenue Medical Center.
The two men, who remained unidentified at press time, were armed with .38-caliber and .45-caliber pistols, the QCPD said.
They were also allegedly carrying two plastic sachets of shabu, five strips of aluminum foil and a “sketch” of the neighborhood. The sketch even had two “X” marks purportedly representing the store and a nearby gas station where an accomplice would wait on a motorbike.
The QCPD director, Senior Supt. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar, said “it was good that our men were able to notice the suspects before they could carry out their plan which could have also hurt others since they were armed.”
In Marikina, 23-year-old Efpraem Carl Rivera was shot dead by the police at his house on De Guzman Street, Barangay Concepcion Uno, around 2:30 p.m. Sunday.
A report to the city police chief, Senior Supt. Lorenzo Holanday, said Rivera “resisted arrest and engaged” the officers who had trapped him into selling P300 worth of shabu to a poseur buyer.
Rivera was shot when he allegedly pulled a .38-caliber revolver and died while undergoing treatment.
The Eastern Police District director, Chief Supt. Romulo Sapitula, said Rivera was a known pusher in the area and was included in the barangay’s drug watch list.
The operation was conducted by the Marikina police in coordination with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.
Dumped in Pasay
In Pasay, an apparent victim of summary execution was found along Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard around 3 a.m. Monday.
Policemen at the Mall of Asia precinct said a security guard found the still-unidentified male whose face was covered in packaging tape.
A message written on bond paper and left next to the body read: “Holdaper na adik, huwag tularan (Robber and addict; don’t emulate)”.
The dead man had the names “Jojo” and “Miko” tattooed on his thighs. With a report from Dexter V. Cabalza
