Crime lab personnel work on the spot where a couple were killed on Thursday night in North Caloocan.—PHOTO BY RADYO INQUIRER
Four people were shot dead in separate incidents involving motorcycle-riding assailants in the cities of Caloocan and Navotas on Thursday night.
The Caloocan victims were a couple who police said were on the watch list of persons with suspected links to the drug trade.
The attack in Navotas killed a 63-year-old man and his 15-year-old grandson who figured in a street riot the previous night.
Around 10 p.m. on Thursday, Luisito Bandola, 45, and his live-in partner Edna Umali, 47, were traveling on their motorbike on Bagumbong Road in Barangay 172, North Caloocan, when they were stopped by the killers.
Witnesses said four men on two motorbikes first overtook the couple and had a brief, heated exchange with them before shooting Umali in the head and Bandola in the body.
It was later revealed in the investigation that Bandola and Umali, who had six children, were on the barangay’s drug watch list, according to PO1 Eddielou Alon, the officer on the case.
‘Siya ba ’to?’
About an hour later in Barangay Tangos, Navotas, four masked men entered the home of Fernando de la Cruz and his 15-year-old grandson Kenneth Maglonzo.
A witness said Maglonzo and three of his friends were hanging out in front of their house when the assailants suddenly appeared and pulled Maglonzo by his hair.
“As they were holding a gun to Kenneth’s head, one of them was checking a series of photos on his phone. They showed the photos to Kenneth’s friends and asked, ‘Siya ba ’to? Siya ba ’to? (Is he the same person?)’ His friends said they didn’t know the man in the photo, but Kenneth was shot anyway,” the witness said.
Maglonzo died on the spot after taking four shots in the head.
The gunmen then turned to Fernando, who was awakened by the shooting, as they saw him coming out of the house.
The gunmen were last seen fleeing on motorbikes.
According to one of the relatives of the victims, they suspect that Maglonzo was killed in retaliation for his involvement in a gang riot with at least nine other teenagers in Barangay San Roque on Wednesday night.—WITH A REPORT FROM RADYO INQUIRER