After bloody week, Taguig mayor calls for meeting

The spate of deadly incidents in Taguig City last week has prompted Mayor Ma. Laarni Cayetano to call for a reevaluation of the local government’s peace and order strategy.

Cayetano said Sunday she would convene the city’s security council following three disturbances in a row that resulted in the deaths of l0 people.

These were the massacre of three family members by a spurned lover, an accidental bomb explosion that killed two junior police officers and two civilians, and a robbery that left three people dead.

“With the support of the city government, I am confident that (Taguig police) will hurdle the challenges they are facing,” she said in a statement. “These incidents… should not affect the reputation and image of Taguig as a fast-growing city.”

The mayor noted that since she assumed office, the city police had received a number of patrol cars and other resources to fight crime and maintain the peace.

The council meeting to be held anytime this week would allow the city government to make the necessary adjustments in its crime-prevention strategies, Cayetano explained.

After Friday morning’s robbery that victimized an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) then on vacation, Cayetano called the attention of the city police chief, Senior Superintendent Tomas Apolinario.

Two men suspected to be behind a string of earlier robberies in the city shot the OFW dead in broad daylight. A responding police team later managed to corner the tandem in Barangay (village) Lower Bicutan, where authorities said they were killed in a shootout. A civilian bystander was hurt in the crossfire.

Meanwhile, authorities were still hunting down a man who, after learning of his common-law wife’s intention to leave him, shot her, her brothers, and mother on Wednesday. The woman survived the attack but the three other victims died.

Also on Wednesday, an 81-millimeter mortar round accidently exploded in a welding shop also in Lower Bicutan, where three junior police officers took it for disarming. The blast killed two of the policemen and two civilians, including a shop worker who tried to tinker with the hardware with welding equipment.

Nine other persons were injured in what was considered an ill-advised move by the officers to defuse an explosive in an ironworks shop.—Miko Morelos