‘Peculiar’ killing of 13-year-old probed

Jayross Brondial: Mistaken identity or revenge? DEXTER CABALZA

A day before he was to take part in a school program celebrating Teachers’ Day, 13-year-old Jayross Brondial was shot dead by a man on a motorcycle in Pasay City.

On Monday, his mother, Rosanna, had the painful task of telling her son’s teachers at Padre Zamora Elementary School in Pasay City that he was gone.

The Grade 6 student was shot three times in the head and three times in the body near the corner of Tramo and Innocencio Streets in Barangay 104 at 3 p.m. Sunday.

“He was calling me as he was being shot. I could not go out of the house because the shots were being fired one after the other,” Rosanna told the Inquirer.

She said she didn’t know at first that it was her son who was the target.

Plea to gunmen

Brondial’s 17-year-old sister said she heard him begging for his life: “I heard him ask the gunman not to shoot him because he had done nothing wrong. But the gunman hit him on the head with the gun and then shot him.”

According to Rosanna, her son was not a drug addict. “He was addicted only to computer games and basketball. Isn’t that normal for a child?” she asked.

The Pasay police chief said that investigators were considering two angles in the “peculiar case” — vengeance and mistaken identity.

Senior Supt. Dionisio Bartolome told the Inquirer that a witness, Jorge Baladjia, had claimed that Gary Alandra was the “real target.”

Alandra, according to barangay officials, was on the drug watch list while his family had a reputation for being involved in illegal drugs.

Baladjia said that minutes before the shooting took place, he was talking to Alandra who later left.

Baladjia said that after several minutes, Brondial approached him and they started talking. At this point, a man on a motorcycle stopped in front of the victim and shot him.

Striking similarities

Barangay 104 watchman Tony Bacsal said that the killer could have mistaken Brondial for Alandra as both were of the same height.

The two were also skinny, sported blonde hair and wore only navy blue shorts at the time of the shooting.

As for the vengeance angle, Bartolome reported that they found out that Jayson Brondial, the leader of a robbery group who was killed in a police operation in Makati in February 2016, was the victim’s older brother.

Another sibling, Jerry Brondial, was earlier arrested in Cavite on robbery and drug charges.

“We are looking at the possibility that other individuals such as their victims are exacting vengeance on the family,” Bartolome said.

The Pasay police have created a special investigation team composed of nine lawmen to look into the case.

Rosanna, meanwhile, had a message for the killer: “I hope his conscience bothers him. He didn’t even stop to think whether he was shooting a child or an adult.”