DAET, CAMARINES NORTE -- A SERIES OF TWO KILLINGS AND ANOTHER SLAY ATTEMPT whose victims are all civilians are now being blamed by the Cam. Norte police office to suspected communist rebels in this province.
The Labo municipal police reported to the police provincial office here last Aug 1 that a former security guard and his four-year old step-daughter narrowly escaped death from rebel assassins, when one of four suspected NPA rebels peppered the store of Rogelio Lagatuz Cendaña, 42, with Cal. 45 bullets, in barangay Malatap, Labo, Cam. Norte.
Cendaña, who was able to take cover inside his store was wounded on his left thigh, while his step-daughter Angelica Saenz sustained a wound on her neck; both were treated at the Cam. Norte provincial hospital here.
Reportedly, Cendaña who worked as a former security guard at the El Dore Mining firm in Barangay Domagmang, Labo town, was suspected as an informer for the military intelligence, by the local NPAs.
Late last week, four armed men who were riding pairs in two motorcycles also shot to death Roberto Necio, 50, a metal-smith worker in Barangay Calasgasan, Daet; the victim sustained two fatal gunshot wounds.
Meanwhile in the afternoon of July 23, two unidentified armed men gunned down Marlon Obispo, 28, who was at that time working at his relative's home in Barangay Canapawan, Labo.
The armed men had ordered Obispo "to run for his life" when when he was immediately felled by M-16 rifle gunfire, in full view of some local residents, the police reported.
According to investigators, Obispo was allegedly sentenced to death by rebels for being a "tormentor" to fellow residents in the said locality. (SONNY SALES)