By EUGENE ADIONG
BACOLOD City — A case of mistaken identity?
Police identified one of the three people who died in a shootout with policemen in Brgy. Nangka, EB Magalona town, on Wednesday as Andy Esgueran (not Esqueran, as earlier reported), citing a witness.
But conflicting claims of two families suggest that the shootout victim, a suspected member of an organized robbery group in northern Negros Occidental, was another person.
Andy Esgueran is still alive, according to his elder brother, Nelbert.
Nelbert said Andy is working as a houseboy in Cebu City and is not involved in any robbery group in the province.
“[Andy] was accused of homicide for allegedly killing our cousin in 2011, that is why he fled to Cebu,” he said. “As a matter of fact, Andy called me up after he received reports that he was identified as one of the dead suspects.”
The three were alleged members of an elusive robbery-holdup group linked to numerous murder and homicide cases and was behind a series of robbery-holdup incidents in EB Magalona and Manapla towns and Victorias and Silay cities.
Senior Insp. Conrado Rances III, EB Magalona police chief, asked the Esgueran family to check the victim’s body at the Lourdes Funeral Parlor in the town.
Interestingly, Erna Constantino of Fortune Towne Subdivision, Brgy. Estefania here, claimed that the body identified as Esgueran was that of her brother, 22-year-old Erdie Constantino, a sugarcane farmworker in Brgy. Tortosa, EB Magalona.
Erna said she learned about the incident through media reports and decided to check the body at the funeral home yesterday.
She said what made her conclude were the stitch marks on the victim’s right leg. Erna said her brother had those following a previous accident. “[Ernie] was just a sugarcane farmworker and was not involved in any crime,” she stressed.
The victim had gunshot wounds in his face and right knee.
The Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office earlier identified the fatalities as Andy Esgueran, Charlie Seva alias “Bongbong” and Joseph de la Torre alias “Naming.” It said the three were members of the dreaded Seva holdup group.
Seva and de la Torre were on the Top 20 most wanted persons in Western Visayas, both facing murder and robbery charges before the Silay City Regional Trial Court.
A member of the Seva holdup group who identified himself as “Tata Siva” yesterday called Aksyon Radyo Bacolod and denied that their members engaged in a shootout with policemen.
“The police should leave us alone. We are already living in peace,” the caller said./PN
