Engineer's brother tests positive for powder burns

CEBU, Philippines - After voluntarily submitting himself to a paraffin test, the brother of an engineer killed along the highway of Consolacion town last week was found positive of gunpowder burns.

SPO1 Silas Ceballo voluntarily took the test a day after his elder brother, Malequias Ceballo, 50, was killed.

SPO1 Ceballo, chief of Traffic Division in the town of Consolacion, went to PNP Regional Crime Laboratory with his relative SPO3 Ramon Perales who tested negative for powder burns.

However, Dr. Nestor Sator, medico-legal   of PNP Crime   Laboratory-7 said that although a person may test positive during a paraffin test, it is not a conclusive indication that he or she has fired a gun.

Sator explained that factors like the air direction can affect the direction of gunpowder burns also.

“If naa’y nagpabuto sa iyang kilid unya ang hangin padulong niya, mataptan siya sa gun powder burns,” Sator explained.

It was earlier reported that both SPO1 Ceballo and SPO3 Perales agreed to undergo the test to clear their names in the death of Ceballo.

SPO1 Ceballo admitted that there was resentment between him and his brother over a land negotiation, but he said he cannot kill his own brother.

Ceballo, a resident of barangay Cogon, Compostela, and engineer of Cebu Holdings Inc., was shot dead by three men on a motorcycle while driving on the highway in barangay Pitogo, Consolacion town, early morning last April 16. 

The assailants remained unidentified and the police continue to pursue the different angles to determine the motive of the killing. — Niña G. Sumacot/BRP (THE FREEMAN)