Drug war kept hot: Cainta police kill pa, son, neighbor

Three drug suspects, including a man and his 20-year-old son, were killed after they allegedly shot it out with the police who chased them on foot across the border of Cainta and Antipolo City on Thursday afternoon.

Von Martinez Sr., 47, his son Von Jr., and Chiquito Bato, 42, exchanged shots with a team of officers who first tried to arrest them in a buy-bust operation in Sitio Balanti, Barangay San Isidro, in Cainta, according to Supt. Fortuno Petalio II, the acting Cainta police chief.

The trio and another suspect identified only as Alvin sensed they were transacting with an undercover agent and ran off toward Barangay Mayamot, a village about one kilometer away and already within neighboring Antipolo, Petalio said.

But they were tracked down in Sitio Baybay Sapa, where they fired at a team led by Senior Insp. Ryan Jay Gaon, Petalio told the Inquirer on Friday.

The slain suspects, who turned out to be residents of Barangay Mayamot, were found carrying three revolvers with no serial numbers and a black coin purse containing seven plastic sachets of suspected “shabu.”

Alvin, the fourth suspect, was able to escape and remained at large.

50 cops used

The Cainta police, in coordination with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the Eastern Police District, earlier conducted surveillance operations on Alvin, a suspected drug pusher operating in San Isidro and Mayamot.

Petalio said Bato and the Martinezes were also in Barangay Mayamot’s watch list of suspected pushers.

The official said as many as 50 policemen were used for Thursday’s daytime antidrug operation. It could not be considered an overkill, he said, since two previous missions in that area almost had officers killed after being shot at.

One of the suspected shooters then was Bato, Petalio recalled.