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Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Man in drug list slain in park lot
By Jovy S. Taghoy
CEBU CITY -- A suspected big-time drug pusher included in the 1997 expose of Representative Antonio Cuenco was shot and killed in a mall parking area Tuesday, raising suspicions he was another victim of vigilante-style killings in Cebu City.
Senior Police Officer 4 Erlando Metante, one of the responding homicide investigators, identified the victim as Rosamun de los Santos, 29, who lived in Barangay Suba.
If investigators declare that de los Santos was killed by a vigilante group, he would be the 50th victim since the rash of killings started last Dec. 22.
De los Santos did not make it to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) alive, after multiple gunshot wounds in his head.
Metante's team, assisted by operatives from the Crime Suppression Unit (CSU), recovered four empty shells fired from a .45 caliber gun.
Considering de los Santos' alleged involvement in the illegal drug trade, Metante said investigators considering a drug-related vendetta as a probable motive.
Family
But he is not discounting the possibility that the killers were vigilantes, or someone who harbored an old grudge against de los Santos, who had a tough reputation in Pasil.
"Ilado daw ni siya nga namaligya og drug diha sa Pasil. Gikahadlukan pud siya sa Pasil (He was said to have sold drugs in Pasil, where he was feared)," Metante said.
Metante said the victim was killed at 3 p.m. just as he was about to leave the SM City parking lot at the North Reclamation Area with his wife Libeña and a child.
The victim had just stepped inside the family's Nissan van (GGC 329), taking the front passenger seat, when a speeding motorcycle with two men on board arrived.
De los Santos was just about to close the door when one of the men, who wore helmets, hurriedly disembarked and shot him.
Watch list
The gunman then transferred to the left side of the vehicle and fired more shots at de los Santos. Both men then hurriedly left.
No one in the area, Metante said, managed to take down the plate number, the color or the type of motorcycle the perpetrators used.
Superintendent Pablo Labra II, chief of the Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Bureau (CIIB), said in a separate interview that de los Santos was in the CIIB's order of battle for suspected drug pushers.
He was also in the watch list of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).
Labra said de los Santos was previously arrested by the Vice Control Section of the Cebu City Police Office and during PDEA operations.
Based on intelligence information gathered by the city police, de los Santos allegedly replaced suspected big-time drug pusher Wilfredo "Lao-Lao" Cabanit in the illegal drug trade after the latter's arrest last year.
(May 4, 2005 issue)
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