Four residents were shot dead while a minor was wounded in attacks perpetrated by motorcycle-riding assailants in a span of two hours Wednesday night in Mandaluyong City, where an ordinance supposedly imposes a restriction on the so-called “riding in tandem” because of security concerns.
All victims were later described by the police as either drug users or pushers identified on a “list” provided by their barangay governments.
At 9:25 p.m., Jonathan Penasbo and a dozen of his friends were celebrating a birthday near his house on Block 34, Welfareville Compound, drinking the night away as they sang the Eraserheads song “Ligaya,” when four masked men approached.
Cornered inside toilet
As the strangers ordered the group to lie face down on the pavement, Penasbo and some of his friends ran away. One of the gunmen chased Penasbo up to his house, cornering him in the toilet, where the 22-year-old was shot twice in the face.
‘Very wrong’
In an interview the following day, Penasbo’s mother Janet said her son did use drugs but that he did not deserve to be killed. “Maling-mali ang ginagawa ni Duterte (What Duterte is doing is very wrong),” she said, referring to the bloody war on narcotics being waged by President Duterte, whose pronouncements since the election campaign season practically endorsed vigilante-style attacks on suspected users and pushers.
As she broke down, Janet held a laminated photo of the youngest son she had just lost, taken when Jonathan went to Quiapo church in January. She said Penasbo left behind a 4-year-old daughter.
According to a report reaching Senior Supt. Joaquin Alva, Mandaluyong police chief, Penasbo was on the drug watch list of Barangay Addition Hills and allegedly served as a “runner” or drug courier for Eleazar Sarvida.
Sarvida, 61, was killed that same night, about five minutes after the shooting of Penasbo.
He had just arrived home in Addition Hills, after a meeting with fellow Jehovah’s Witnesses church members, when he was shot in the face by one of two men who waited for him at his front gate. He died on the spot.
One of Sarvida’s colleagues in the church maintained that the victim didn’t drink, smoke or take illegal drugs for “that’s in our rules.”
Watched by intel unit
But according to PO3 Donald Banes, the case investigator, Sarvida was on the watch list of the city police intelligence unit, which had also received information from the barangay saying Sarvida’s wife was also into drugs.
Sarvida’s previous spouse was charged with drug pushing and died in jail, Banes said, and his son faces an arrest warrant for three counts of rape.
Around 9:45 p.m., motorcycle-riding gunmen also shot and killed Michael Desvarro, 39, near a convenience store on A. Bonifacio Street, Barangay Hagdang Bato. Desvarro, who police said peddled drugs along with cigarettes, lived a block away from Penasbo at Welfareville.
But Desvarro’s cousin, Airylyn, belied this, saying he had been eking out a living selling cigarettes, his daily struggle made harder by the fire that destroyed his house in November. Desvarro and his family had since been staying in a crowded evacuation center, Airylyn added.
An eyewitness to Desvarro’s killing said the shooter was holding a photo when he approached his target.
4th victim of the night
Around 11:30 p.m, 40-year-old Anabelle dela Cruz, a resident of Sto. Rosario Street and a drug surrenderer in Barangay Plainview, suffered the same fate.
The attack on Dela Cruz, however, also wounded 15-year-old Tenica Perez, who was walking on the same street when hit in the right leg by a stray bullet.
Dela Cruz was later pronounced dead at Sta. Ana Hospital, while Perez remained confined in another hospital for her gunshot wound.
Dela Cruz was on the barangay watch list of drug users, according to Banes.