Christian Reyes of Barangay 157, Pasay City, was supposed to bring back his two neighbors to their families after they were released by the police who had them detained as drug suspects.
Instead, the 29-year-old Reyes and friends Jackie Flores, 30, and Diosdado Kim Escamillas, 24, were killed by four gunmen on motorbikes as they made their way back to their neighborhood on Apelo Cruz Street.
The three, who were also on a motorbike, were ambushed at the corner of F.B. Harrison Street and Arnaiz Avenue around 10:15 p.m. on Thursday, according to the case investigator SPO1 Giovanni Arcinue.
No link to drugs
Flores and Escamillas were killed on the spot, while Reyes died at Pasay City General Hospital about an hour later. The victims were reportedly townmates back in their native Quezon province.
SPO1 Ronaldo David of the Pasay police antidrug unit said that hours before they were killed, Flores and Escamillas were arrested with four others in an antidrug operation. The two were freed after investigators failed to find anything linking them to the drug trade.
“I wish we had filed charges against them (to keep them in detention); maybe they would still be alive,” David said.
4 more slain in QC
On Friday, four drug suspects were killed by the police in two separate operations Quezon City.
In Manresa, La Loma, Edwin Corpin and Paul Kenneth Borja allegedly shot it out with the officers who conducted a buy-bust operation around 2 a.m.
Corpin, 44, earlier surrendered under Oplan Tokhang but allegedly returned to selling drugs, while Borja, 24, allegedly served as his courier.
Six hours later, Alvin Mendoza, 32, and Erwin Ifondo, 38, of Gulod, Novaliches, were killed after allegedly firing at officers serving a search warrant on Mendoza’s house.
Twenty two sachets of “shabu” and two pistols were later found at the house, the Quezon City Police District said. —With a report from Jhesset Enano