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Saturday, September 02, 2006
4 slain this month; 'Dumaguete a killing field'
By Jimmy P. Abayon and Syril G. Repe
THE family of the latest victim in the string of killings in Dumaguete City challenged Mayor Agustin Perdices Monday to erase what they described as the "black eye" in the city's image as City of Gentle People.
"Dumaguete City has become the province's killing field capital," Mindanao-based journalist Edmund Sestoso told reporters at the wake of his brother Jing Sestoso in a funeral parlor in Barangay Camanjac.
The younger Sestoso was gunned down by two men on board a motorcycle near Villa Fortunata, Barangay Batinguel 1:30 Sunday morning.
His companion Ariel Barredo remained in serious condition Monday and was to be operated on at the Negros Oriental Provincial Hospital to extract the slug lodged in his skull.
Sestoso clarified he was not reacting as a brother of the victim but because the series of killings has remained unsolved.
The journalist, a former correspondent of Sun.Star Dumaguete, said the Philippine National Police (PNP) must unmask the killers not only of his younger brother but also of the others who were slain in the past and have become "mere statistics" in the police file.
"It's not an excuse that the killers can't be identified, otherwise they are not worth to be called protectors of the people," Sestoso said referring to the city police's failure to solve the number of separate violent deaths in the city -- six in July and four as of Sunday -- by men aboard a motorcycle and using the same caliber 9mm handgun.
He said he had no idea if the assailants were members of a vigilante group or if his brother was a police character.
A police source said Barredo was a theft suspect while the younger Sestoso was linked to illegal drugs.
Ernesto Semil, the driver of the pedicab that brought Sestoso and Barredo to Batinguel from the city proper, said his two passengers were alighting from his vehicle when a motorcycle carrying two masked men appeared.
Semil said one of the riders shouted at him to take cover and fired at the two victims several times.
Sestoso is the fourth alleged "police characters" slain this month by motorcycle-riding men in a trail of bloodshed this month starting August 18.
The previous victims were Ryan Martinez, 20, of Barangay Daro, a police character who escaped an attack but was wounded on the night of August 18, and Ray Villamor, 21, single, of Barangay Tinago, who was gunned down past 1 a.m. of August 19.
Villamor was reportedly escaping from a shootout moments before the incident near a V-hire terminal in Tinago and was fleeing through Sta. Rosa street when a motorcycle with two riders overtook him and one of the men peppered him with shots then escaped.
A week later, on the afternoon of August 25, a lone gunman shot dead Jose Paligsa, 44, married, an ex-convict from Hiliga-on Siaton, Negros Oriental.
Witnesses said Paligsa was sitting on the top of a FUSO canter fish cargo hauler parked in front of an auto parts store near the Ceres bus terminal in Barangay Calindagan when an unidentified man approached and fired at him seven times with a 9mm gun and five times with a caliber .45 handgun.
The witnesses said the killer hurried away to a waiting motorcycle a short distance from the crime scene and escaped.
On the other hand, Earl Zerna, 29, single, of Barangay Looc was sitting on a pushcart along Flores avenue 10:45 p.m. Saturday when a motorcycle with two riders appeared and the backrider shot him several times.
He died as he was rushed to Silliman University Medical Center.
Zerna is included in the police list of illegal drug personalities.
(August 31, 2006 issue)
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