Rob gang chief dead after 2-hr standoff

After almost a decade in hiding, an alleged member of a robbery and gun-for-hire group was killed at the end of a two-hour standoff with the Quezon City police on Wednesday.

Wilfredo Chavenia, who reportedly rose to the top of the notorious “Bonnet Gang” after its members were killed by the police one by one, met the same fate in a house in Barangay Old Balara, where he engaged members of the Quezon City Police District (QCPD).

A QCPD team swooped down on Chavenia’s house at Pook Dela Paz near Feria Road around 11 a.m. to enforce a nine-year-old arrest warrant against him for robbery.

The warrant was issued in April 2008 by Judge Jose Mendoza of Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 55, where Chavenia stood accused along with other alleged gang members Randy Ledason, Nelio Pajuelas, Abe Nungay and Jaymar Reyes.

The five suspects were earlier arrested for robbing a remittance center in Mabalacat, Pampanga province, in September 2006, but they were all able to post bail.

When an arresting party again came for Chavenia on Wednesday, he immediately fired at the officers, according to Senior Insp. Elmer Monsalve, homicide section chief of the QCPD-Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit.

Chavenia was with five other persons in the house, also armed and wearing bulletproof vests, Monsalve said.

Two policemen—PO2 Anthony Magallon and SPO3 Jonathan Caranza—were hit in the right hand and the right hip, respectively, and were brought to the hospital.

After the first volley of fire, Chavenia and his cohorts found an escape route via the rooftop. One of them, Gregy Ralph Pajanustan, was still holding a hand grenade when cornered on Liwanag Street.

Chavenia broke into an adjacent house while the four other suspects completed their escape on foot.

As Chavenia dug in, a 10-member SWAT unit arrived as reinforcement. He started firing shots again around 2 p.m. until he was hit several times in the head.

“He endured the firefight because of his vest. He even brought bottled water with him, so he was ready for even a longer standoff,” Monsalve said.

Recovered from the slain Chavenia was a .45-caliber Colt pistol, a homemade shotgun and several sachets of “shabu.”

According to the QCPD, Chavenia was one of the last remnants of the Bonnet Gang. In the early 2000s, before the Mabalacat robbery, its original leaders identified only as “Buyo” and “Pingkaw” were killed in an encounter with the Quezon City police, Monsalve recalled.

Pajuelas later assumed the leadership of the gang, which also became known as the “Dako Group,” after his nickname. Nungay was next to be killed by the police in Manila.

In February last year, Pajuelas and Ledason were killed by the Quezon City police after they robbed a supermarket employee at gunpoint in Novaliches.

They had two more accomplices in that heist, one of whom escaped despite being wounded in the encounter but was found dead the following day in Dasmarinas, Cavite province.

The other turned out to be Chavenia, who got away with the stolen cash amounting to P620,000, Monsalve said.

In November last year, Chavenia was sighted in Old Balara, where he allegedly used his house as a drug den. “Since then, we have been trying to arrest him but we only got the chance to corner him (on Wednesday),” the QCPD official added.