ILOILO City – Another drug suspect was killed in this city, this time in Barangay Ingore, La Paz district – racking up to 67 the number of casualties in Western Visayas amid the war on drugs that started in July 2016.
Motorcycle-riding gunmen fired at the 41-year-old Rolando Puda Jr. at around 7 p.m. on Friday – just hours after another drug suspect was gunned down in Barangay Calumpang, Molo.
Puda expired while being treated for multiple gunshot wounds at the West Visayas State University Medical Center in Jaro.
The bonnet-wearing back rider of the motorcycle peppered Puda with bullets while the latter was talking to friends along the road, said Senior Inspector Ariel Pico, La Paz police station chief.
The gunmen sped away afterwards.
“We have yet to identify the suspects but witnesses said the driver was wearing a helmet while the back rider was wearing a bonnet,” said Pico.
Sometime in 2016 Puda turned himself in to the La Paz police amid the government crackdown on drug users and dealers, Pico said.
At the time law enforcers were encouraging identified drug suspects to surrender to the police for documentation and compelling them to promise to no longer engage in the drug trade.
Those who resisted were subjected to antidrug operations that would sometimes turn fatal, with police operatives claiming those they shot and killed were armed and “fought back.”
Puda also faced grave threat and illegal gun possession charges after slapping a 69-year-old woman and poking a gun at her last year, said Pico.
Police recovered six empty shells of a .9mm pistol from the crime scene. “We are looking into illegal drugs and his other criminal charges as possible motives,” Pico said.
Puda was the seventh drug suspect to get killed in Western Visayas since Sunday last week and the 67th since the drug war started.
Also on Friday at 9:30 a.m., Don Azucena was shot by motorcycle-riding gunmen while waiting for a jeepney ride in Zone 4, Barangay Calumpang, Molo.
The 42-year-old resident of Barangay North Baluarte, Molo surrendered in 2016 and completed a drug rehabilitation program, according to the district police station./PN
