Police tell 3rd suspect in Annalou slay surrender or be killed by syndicate

DORIA

THE Philippine National Police (PNP) has called on a third suspect in the killing of Annalou Llaguno to surrender to police authorities immediately before members of the drug underworld gets to him first.

“You better surrender now,” said Senior Supt. Joel Doria, director of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO), to the driver of the getaway motorcycle used by Llaguno’s killers in her ambush-slay last September 30.

For his part, the chief of the Police Regional Office (PRO-7) in Central Visayas expressed glee that members of drug syndicates were now apparently killing each other.

PRO-7 director Chief Supt. Noli Taliño said the recent slay of Michael Lendio and Richard Jungoy, Llaguno’s alleged killers, proved that members of drug syndicates appeared to be conducting “internal cleansing.”

“Well, that’s good. The police have one less task to perform,” Taliño quipped.

Lendio and Jungoy were gunned down within a span of 18 hours from Monday night purportedly to silence them on who ordered Llaguno’s ambush-slay last September.

“He (motorcyle driver) could be the next target. He might as well surrender to the police, and we promise to secure him,” Doria told reporters yesterday, adding that police wanted to get the driver alive so that he could squeal on their mastermind.

Llaguno was the estranged wife of Eastern Visayas’ suspected drug lord Kerwin Espinosa.

Reports claimed that she later also had a relationship with Jeffrey “Jaguar” Diaz, tagged by police as the biggest drug lord in Central Visayas.

According to a PNP report, Llaguno was killed for tipping police on the whereabouts of Diaz which led to a police operation killing Jaguar in Las Piñas City last June.

Third and only living suspect

The driver of the getaway vehicle, whom police refused to name for security reasons, remains as the third and only living suspect in the ambush-slay of Llaguno.

“The driver is the key to a lot of information. We have intensified our operations to find him. We have his name, and this time around, the police need to get him before someone else does,” Doria said.

“Their groupmates wanted them dead. Look at what happened to the two other suspects. They were killed,” added the Cebu City police director.

Doria said that syndicate members must be reading the newspapers and watching the news on television.

“They know the action of the police. That’s why we need to compartmentalize our information,” Doria explained.

For his part, Taliño said that the killing of Lendio and Jungoy also proved that police were never involved in extrajudicial killings, a claim echoed by Cebu City Councilor Dave Tumulak, deputy mayor on police matters.

“We believe that our policemen are not into extrajudicial killings. I’m 100 percent sure that members of drug syndicates are killing each other,” said Tumulak.

Lendio was celebrating his 41st birthday at a barbeque store along J.M. Basa Street in Barangay San Nicolas, Cebu City, last Monday when at around 9 p.m. two men on board a motorcycle shot him several times, killing him on the spot.

The police are looking for Lendio’s two drinking mates, a certain Dennis and a certain Alex, who disappeared after the shooting incident.

Past 3 p.m. on Tuesday, two unidentified assailants also shot Jungoy dead in Barangay Duljo-Fatima, Cebu City.

Jungoy, a resident of Barangay Guadalupe, was buying cigarettes from a convenience store when two men on board a motorcycle approached him.

The backrider then pulled out a gun and shot Jungoy several times.

Jungoy had two existing arrest warrants for murder and frustrated murder issued by Judges Wilfredo Navarro and Estela Alma Singco of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branches 19 and 12 in Cebu City, respectively.

Although he was a resident of Barangay Guadalupe, he was reportedly seen most of the time in Barangay Duljo-Fatima, where Jaguar’s compound is located.

“Based on the information we received, the two suspects (Lendio and Jungoy) are members of Jaguar’s group. They escort the drug supplies during delivery and at the same time acted as hit men of the group,” Doria said.

Earlier last September 30, two assailants, later identified as Lendio and Jungoy, shot Llaguno dead while riding a scooter driven by her boyfriend in Barangay Duljo-Fatima, Cebu City.

Llaguno was the niece of slain alleged drug lord Crisostomo “Tata Negro” Llaguno.