Police inspect the house of the farmer, who was shot in Sibonga town in southern Cebu. | Contributed photo courtesy of Sibonga police
CEBU CITY, Philippines — A farmer was shot dead in his own home while his 12-year-old son was hiding in the other room in Barangay Bae, Sibonga town in southern Cebu at past 8 p.m. on Monday, December 16, 2019.
Sibonga police were only able to respond to the area of incident early this morning, December 17, or nearly 12 hours after the incident, after the barangay captain of the area called the station and informed them about the incident.
Police Staff Sergeant Paul Baclay, Sibonga police desk officer, said that when they arrived, the victim identified as Hipolito Tolomia, 41, was found sitting lifeless on a chair inside his home, with a gunshot wound on the lower left side of his ear.
Baclay said that no one was able to witness the shooting incident as most of the residents lived a few meters away from the house of the victim.
However, according to the victim’s son, there was an unidentified man, who barged inside the house just when he finished dressing up his father, who came home drunk.
The boy said that he then went to the other room of the house when he heard footsteps followed by a single shot fired from a gun.
He said that he did not check what happened but hid in the room fearing also for his life.
Baclay said when the boy got out from his hiding place, he saw his dead father, sitting on a chair with a gunshot wound in his head.
He said they were still investigating the incident because there were no other witnesses as the neighbors houses were quite a distance from the victim’s house.
He, however, said that residents in the area did not know of anyone wanting to kill the victim since they knew him as a good person in the community.
Baclay said that they were looking into the background of the victim and were inviting the persons, whom he had a drinking session with before he got home to find out what happened before he was killed./dbs