Boy struck by stray bullet asks: ‘Why me?’

The family of a 10-year-old boy who was struck by a stray bullet in Taguig City on New Year’s Eve has called on the shooter to surrender.

“Why me? Why me?” Gian Penacilla, a Grade 5 student, asked his neighbors who rushed him to Rizal Medical Center when he fell to the ground, blood on his head.

Penacilla was watching a fireworks display outside their house on Tartaria Street in Palingon Tipas, Taguig City, when he was hit by a bullet in the head at 10:45 p.m. on Dec. 31, a Taguig police report said.

Nora Timkang, Penacilla’s aunt who was taking turns with his parents in watching over the boy at the hospital, said that they were at home when their neighbors came running up to them with the news that the boy had been shot.

Timkang said nobody saw or heard a gun being fired.

Penacilla was later operated on and reported to be in stable condition. The police recovered the slug on Monday and would submit it for ballistics examination. The Taguig City government has promised to shoulder the boy’s hospital bills.