Informer gunned down

Valenzuela City cops are hunting down two gunmen who shot to death an informant of the local anti-narcotics police unit at a known haven of criminals in the city in broad daylight Tuesday.

Senior Police Officer 1 Jesus Sagisi, Valenzuela City police senior investigator, identified the victim as Eufracio Estamol, 30, a resident of Barangay Malinta also in Valenzuela. Estamol sustained bullet wounds in the head, face, two in the arms and one in the leg. He died on the spot from his wounds.

Senior Police Officer 1 Ronald Bautista said that at around 12:30 p.m., two men approached Estamol while walking on Dulong Tangke Street in Barangay Malinta. Without provocation, one of the suspects, armed with a .45 caliber pistol, fired at the victim several times at close range. As Estamol fell on the pavement, the gunman finished him off with another shot in the head.

The suspects just walked away from the crime scene and disappeared in a squatters’ colony in the area. Police recovered near the victim’s body several shells and deformed slugs for a .45 caliber pistol.

Dulong Tangke, a depressed community, is a known haven of criminals in Barangay Malinta and has been the subject of raids by the local police but bad elements continue to thrive in the area.

Police said that Estamol, a reformed drug peddler who turned informant, could be a liquidation target by criminal elements for being responsible in the arrest of a number of pushers in Dulong Tangke. – Pete Laude