Father of stray bullet victim shot dead in Consolacion

ANGER AND GRIEF: Marilou Batucan, 45, believes her husband’s death on Tuesday is related to the death of her son, who was hit by a stray bullet during an allegedly failed police anti-drug operation in Sitio Nangka, Cansaga, Consolacion last December. In the above file photo, victim Wilson Batucan shows the slug of a .45 caliber pistol that went through the bullet hole that ripped through his house and killed his son Saniño.
CDN PHOTO/TONEE DESPOJO

Village watchman Wilson Batucan was shot dead by an unknown assailant yesterday, three months after the controversial death of his seven-year-old son, who was hit by a stray bullet and died in what he described as a botched police operation in the town of Consolacion in northern Cebu.

Batucan, 50, a barangay tanod of Cansaga, Consolacion, was shot in the head and chest by an unidentified assailant past 6 a.m. yesterday while he was about to park his motorcycle about 15 meters from his roadside residence.

PO1 Macroe Lanurias of the Consolacion Police Station said Batucan, who also worked as a motorcycle-for-hire driver, had just ferried a child to the Consolacion Central School when shot by a lone assailant who drove a blue Honda XRM motorcycle and hid his face under a bonnet. Two empty shells from a .45 pistol were found in the crime scene, said Lanurias.

Lanurias said they still have to find the motive for the killing, but it was possible that it was related to the death of Batucan’s son, Saniño, on Dec. 3, 2016.

The boy was watching television inside their home in Barangay Cansaga at past 8 p.m. when shots rang out just outside of their house, one of which hit the boy in the stomach. The shots were fired by a group of bonnet-wearing men who were chasing after a teenage boy accused of selling drugs.

Although the assassins’ faces were concealed, Batucan believed they were policemen. The police, however, said there was no anti-drug operation in the community that night.

Batucan’s 45-year-old wife Marilou was in shock when she learned her husband was killed.

“Kon naay tawo nga malas na lang g’yud kaayo niining kalibutana, ako na. Bag-o pa lang gani namatay ang akong anak, ang ako na pud nga bana ang napatay. (If there’s one person in the world who is just so unlucky, that must be me. I just lost my son and now my husband was killed),” she told Cebu Daily News yesterday.

Cop suspect?

Marilou said her husband recently confided to her that a motorcycle-riding man whose face was concealed tried to offer him money in relation to their son’s death. Wilson, she said, was told to just accept the money and sign a certain document but he refused. Instead, she said, her husband assured the man that he had no plan to pursue a case against their son’s killer.

She said her husband also told her that he found out who the policeman responsible for their son’s death was, but he did not want to reveal the cop’s name because he feared that she might be dragged into the case.

Marilou believed the policeman whom her husband accused of having a hand in their son’s death hired someone to kill him yesterday.
She appealed to the assailant to come into the open in order to give justice to her husband’s death.

“Iyang gikuhaan og amahan ang akong mga anak. Kon kinsa man gani ang nagpatay sa akong bana, makonsensya unta ka. Tinalawan man na ang imo. Unsa man gibayran ka og P20,000? Mahurot ra na. Mamatay ra sab ka,” an angry Marilou said.

(The assailant deprived my children of their father. Whoever killed my husband, I hope you will be bothered by your conscience. What you did was a sign of cowardice. What? Were you paid P20,000 to kill my husband? That amount is easy to spend. You too will die.)

Marilou and the victim have 15 children. The eldest is 29 years old while the youngest is six.

Marilou said she doesn’t know now how to support her young children, especially their youngest child who needs medical treatment from meningitis, or an inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain.

Marilou said her husband had been trying to avoid getting into trouble and even decided against cooperating with the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) that looked into their son’s death.

The widow said that while she wanted to go after her husband’s killer, she was afraid to take any move that could also put at risk the rest of her family.

Marilou appealed to the police to conduct an investigation and help them find justice for her husband.

“Pangitaa ninyo ang nagpatay. Pangita og paagi aron mabalik ang akong pagsalig ninyo. (Look for the assailant. Find a way so that I will trust you again),” she said.