Motorcycle-riding gunmen shot three drug surrenderers in separate incidents on Wednesday night in Barangay Malanday, Marikina City, killing two of them and leaving the third wounded.
According to one account, the killers moved as a group composed of 11 men and closed in on their target on six motorbikes.
A 69-year-old woman who just happened to be passing by also ended up in the hospital after she was hit by a stray bullet, according to the police. Vivencia Basiloy remains confined at Amang Rodriguez Memorial Medical Center (ARMMC) for a gunshot wound in the ankle.
The shooting incidents happened within a 35-minute period and in three areas that were quite near each other, leading the police to suspect that these were carried out by just one group. Another angle they were looking into was the three surrenderers’ possible involvement in a gang selling diluted “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride).
A report to Senior Supt. Lorenzo Holanday, Marikina police chief, said that Alvin Alcanar, 29, was standing on Narra Street in Libis Bulelak at 6:25 p.m. on Wednesday when around 11 bonnet-wearing men on six motorcycles without license plates shot him. He died on the spot.
The police recovered from the scene eight cartridges from a gun of an unknown caliber, two slugs and a sachet of suspected shabu.
Around 20 minutes later, Renald Pangan, 33, was seated in front of a warehouse on Camia Street in Minahan Libis when he was shot by motorcycle-riding men, according to a report sent to Holanday.
Basiloy was standing nearby and was also hit. Both she and Pangan were rushed to ARMMC where the latter was declared dead on arrival.
At 7 p.m., corn vendor Nelson Ramos, 50, was cooking in the kitchen of his house on Daisy Street, Minahan Libis when unidentified men barged inside and shot him.
Ramos was brought by his relatives to Amang Rodriguez where he remains confined.
Holanday told the Inquirer that Pangan, Ramos, Alcanar had earlier surrendered to Barangay Malanday officials as drug users. The police, however, had information that they were also involved in drug pushing.
At the same time, Holanday said they were also verifying reports the three were members of a drug group which were allegedly fighting over shabu that was being diluted by adding “tawas” (alum).