ILOILO City – So far, it appears that the police have no way to identify the gunmen who shot to death a barangay tanod in Jaro district last Friday other than through closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera footages.
The Iloilo City Police Office is still looking into the fatal shooting of Niel Agustin Resma in Barangay Calubihan – one of several recent killings local officers are struggling to solve.
Investigators have yet to identify the suspects and determine the motive, city police director Senior Superintendent Martin Defensor said.
They have not yet established as of this writing if the incident was related to Resma’s being a village watchman or a drug surrenderer.
“We have CCTV footages” showing the suspects, who were riding in tandem in a motorcycle, Defensor said.
“The back rider – the bonnet-wearing gunman – disembarked from the motorcycle and approached the victim, and then quickly returned to the motorcycle driven by the helmet-wearing suspect” after the shooting, said the police official.
Defensor said they will have the security camera footages enhanced to make out the facial features of the attackers.
Earlier, also citing security camera footages, the Jaro police head Chief Inspector Tranquilino Querubin said the killers entered Barangay Calubihan from El 98 Street, Jaro and escaped through Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. Avenue (Diversion Road).
“We are optimistic to solve this case with the help of the CCTV footages,” said Chief Superintendent John Bulalacao, regional police director.
The 38-year-old Resma was cleaning his motorcycle by the roadside near the Jaro barangay hall around 9:15 a.m. when repeatedly shot.
He sustained gunshot wounds on the head and body. He was taken to the Western Visayas Medical Center in Mandurriao district where he was pronounced dead.
Resma turned himself in to the police as a drug pusher in August 2017 and had undergone rehabilitation.
Originally a resident of Barangay Bakhaw, Mandurriao, the victim was a high-value target in the police’s antidrug campaign.
Resma’s death is just one of the killings the city police are still trying to resolve.
Exactly a week before the tanod was killed, the 41-year-old Bengie Abacajin – also a drug surrenderer – was shot to death in Barangay Sooc, Arevalo.
As of this writing, the ICPO has yet to identify the suspects and determine the motive in Abacajin’s death as well.
Abacajin, a resident of Barangay Santo Niño Sur, Arevalo, was driving his tricycle at around 6:45 p.m. on Sept. 28 when four motorcycle-riding people waylaid him at a bridge. One of them fired at him.
From what the police have gathered, Abacajin was a caretaker of a rest
house owned by lawyer Edeljulio Romero. Romero, a lawyer for slain drug lord Melvin “Boyet” Odicta, was killed in Barangay Culasi, Roxas City earlier that day.
Abacajin was pronounced dead at the Western Visayas Medical Center. He sustained gunshot wounds on the body. Four empty shells of a .45 pistol were recovered from the crime scene.
Three other drug personalities were killed by motorcycle-riding gunmen in this capital city in September.
Abacajin’s wife, Rowena, was crying for justice. She insisted that he was no longer in any way engaged in the illegal drug trade.
Driving a tricycle has been his source of income since turning himself in to the police amid the tougher government crackdown on drugs in 2016, said Rowena.
“Sang nag-surrender sia (Abacajin) wala na sia nag-entra sa drugs kag nag-drive na lang sia sang tricycle para makakwarta,” Rowena said in a recent radio interview. “Gina-monitor ko man sia. Ngaa ginpatay gid nila?”/PN
