Man dies a month after he gets shot

CEBU, Philippines - The alleged killer of a photojournalist seven years ago died of complications at a private hospital in Cebu City last week, a month after he was shot by two unidentified gunmen in Barangay Cawayan, Dalaguete.

Edgar “Dodong Inso” Belandres died at the Intensive Care Unit of a private hospital where he was confined and reportedly on coma because of the gunshot wounds he sustained when two motorcycle-riding gunmen shot him last December.

Belandres’ medical bulletin had been kept by his family from the members of the media until the report of his passing last week.

He was buried yesterday at the Manila Memorial Garden in Lilo-an.

Belandres was arrested in 2004 after he was tagged by at least three witnesses in the killing of The FREEMAN and Banat News photographer Allan Dizon.

Then Regional Trial Court Judge Ireneo Lee Gako, Jr. sentenced Belandres in January 2006 to life imprisonment after he was found guilty of murder.

However, in March 2010, the Court of Appeals reversed Gako’s ruling and ordered Belandres’ acquittal. Since then, Belandres had moved to Dalaguete where he was tending a farm.

At around 8:30 a.m. on December 10, Belandres was sitting on a bamboo chair near the road in Sitio Panocdocan when the motorcycle-riding assailants shot him. —(FREEMAN)