A taxi driver from Lapu-Lapu City was gunned down by still unidentified assailants in Barangay Canamucan II, Conpostela town, on Monday morning, July 19, 2021. | Photo from Compostela PS
CEBU CITY, Philippines — A taxi driver was gunned down in Barangay Canamucan II in the town of Compostela, northern Cebu on Monday morning, July 19, 2021.
Police Lieutenant Samuel Negro, chief of the Compostela Police Station, said the the victim, identified as Antonio Taneo, was nabbed in Lapu-Lapu City in 2018 for selling and possession of illegal drugs.
With this and the fact that personnel from the Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO) found a small sachet of suspected ‘shabu’ inside the victim’s bag, Negro said that they are not discounting the possibility that this shooting incident is drug-related.
Negro, though, said they are still investigating the shooting and that they do not have leads on the suspects. But he believes that the suspects and the victim may have known each other.
“Murag iyang assailant ani, murag iyang kaila or contact ra kay wa man siyay pasahero unya pag abot daw didto sa area, suma pa sa witness, gipusil kuno diretso,” Negro said.
(Maybe the assailant is someone the victim knows or is a contact since he did not have any passengers when he arrived in the area where, according to the witness, he was shot right away.)
Negro said it is too early to say that this is on drug-related alone.
For now, Negro said that they will coordinate with the owner of the taxi cab driven by Taneo to ask if they could use footage from the dash camera as evidence, hoping they can get leads from it. He also added that they are looking to some security cameras nearby the area where the incident took place.
According to Negro, all they got now is a statement from a witness who said that at around 7 a.m., he noticed a motorcycle with two individuals onboard, who seemed like they were contacting someone through a cellphone. Both, however, could not be identified since they were wearing face masks.
They have yet to verify if these two individuals were the persons who shot Taneo.
Negro said that this is the first shooting incident in Compostela this month.
/bmjo
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