A police officer, who was reported to have been suspended from the police force, and his cousin, who was an overseas Filipino worker, were shot dead by two unidentified assailants early Saturday morning in a subdivision in Barangay Estaca, Compostela town in northern Cebu.
PO3 Antonio Ibonia and his cousin, Cezar Belacho, died after they were shot several times in the body by two men wearing bonnets and hooded T-shirts, said SPO1 Derrick Into of the Compostela Police Station yesterday.
Initial probe
Into said that initial investigation showed that Belacho was feeding his fighting cocks outside his house in Juan Subdivision at past 5 a.m. yesterday when two men on a motorcycle arrived, entered the opened gate of Belacho’s house and shot Belacho several times in the body.
Into said after gunning down Belacho, both men entered the house and sought out Ibonia and also shot him several times in the body.
They then fled on their motorcycle without taking anything inside the house.
Neighbors told police that they failed to even jot down the plate number of the motorcycle because the shooting happened so fast.
Police recovered shells of a caliber .40 and caliber .45 pistols at the crime scene. They also found a caliber .45 pistol on a divider inside the house, which was believed to be Ibonia’s gun.
Former cop?
Chief Insp. Romeo Caacoy Jr., Compostela Police Station chief, said they were checking reports that Ibonia was suspended from being a member of the Lapu-Lapu City Police Office’s City Intelligence Branch after he allegedly tested positive for illegal drugs.
Caacoy said that this was the initial information he got from the Lapu-Lapu City police.
He, however, was also looking into reports that Ibonia was dismissed from service.
He also said that Ibonia was not in the Compostela police’s watch list of drug personalities, but they were looking into the possibility that the killing was drug related.
Caacoy also said that Belacho had just returned about two months ago from working as a construction worker in Saudi Arabia.
He also said that they were also checking reports that Belacho allegedly had filed a case against his live-in partner, whom he recently broke up with, and they were looking if it had any links to the killing.
Belacho’s neighbors told the Compostela police chief that Ibonia was staying with Belacho in Belacho’s house because Ibonia was reportedly processing his papers for reinstatement in the police force.
Caacoy said that they were continuing to investigate the killings and get the killers of the two men.
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