UNFORTUNATE CASUALTY
IT was supposed to be just another day at the workplace for Wilson Bucag, a security guard assigned at the parking lot of Infinity Bar KTV and Music Lounge along Archbishop Reyes Avenue in uptown Cebu City.
Bucag, 42, however, ended as a casualty in the drive-by shooting aimed at the bar’s owner, Wellington Lim, because he happened to be guiding Lim’s SUV out of the bar’s parking lot when a group of armed men on board on a pickup appeared out of nowhere and peppered Lim’s car with bullets.
As Bucag was left sprawled in the middle of the road, another security guard in the parking lot, George Lambatan, 52, luckily only sustained minor wound in the elbow.
Lambatan was rushed to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center where he was admitted and treated for his wound.
German tourists Pauline Basbach, 20, and Manuel Georrings, 24, who were just passing by after buying food at a convenience store along Archbishop Reyes Ave. were also as lucky as Lambatan, as they survived the shooting.
Basbach, who was hit in the right thigh, and Georrings, who was hit in the right elbow, were rushed to the nearby Perpetual Succour Hospital.
“The doctor says they are safe now,” said SPO3 Wetzel Berry of the homicide section of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) in a phone interview on Saturday.
The German tourists were heading back to their hotel, which was about 20 meters from Infinity KTV, when the shooting happened, said Berry.
He said the German Consulate had already been informed about the plight of the German tourists.
Bucag, who like Lambatan worked for GDS Security Agency, laid in the middle of the road bathed in his own blood long after both Lim’s vehicle and that of the attackers have left the area.
Bucag’s body was later brought to the Saint Francis Funeral Homes along Barangay San Nicholas Proper in Cebu City.
It was only around 4 p.m. on Saturday, nearly 14 hours since his violent and unexpected demise that his remains were finally brought to his home in Barangay Centro, Mandaue City, where his wake would be held.
Celia Suico, 63, the mother of Bucag, said her son has long been separated from his common law wife and had no children.
Suico, who was still in a daze, has yet to set her son’s burial.