Pasig mayor offers P100,000 for gunman in reporter's shooting

MANILA, Philippines -  Pasig City Mayor Robert Eusebio offered yesterday a P100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the gunman in the shooting of reporter Fernan Angeles last March 11.

Meanwhile, Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG)Secretary Jesse Robredo ordered an investigation into the Pasig police investigators’ apparent attempt to twist the investigation.

He has ordered the DILG’s Office of Internal Security to determine if the investigators have a hidden agenda to focus on the drug charges against Angeles rather than go after his attackers.

Senior Superintendent Mario Soriano, officer-in-charge (OIC) of the Eastern Police District (EPD), said Eusebio also assured Angeles’ wife, Gemma, that the city government will shoulder all her husband’s hospital expenses.

Angeles is recovering at the Pasig City General Hospital from seven gunshot wounds he sustained during the attack. His doctors said he is already out of danger.

The reward for the capture of the gunman, a certain Faisal, is now at P200,000 as National Press Club president Jerry Yap also pledged P100,000.

Soriano said police teams from the Special Investigation Task Force Angeles are scouring several areas of Pasig and its neighboring cities and municipalities for Faisal.

A separate police team from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) is hunting down not only Faisal but also his companions, Bacari and Jay-R. The three men are behind the flourishing illegal drug trade in Barangay Pinagbuhatan, a CIDG official said.

“They are armed and dangerous. Faisal was even monitored by our asset as carrying a hand grenade,” said a CIDG official who requested anonymity.

Soriano said they are still trying to find out whether Faisal was involved in the shabu tiangge run by convicted drug den operator Amin Imam Boratong in Barangay Sto. Tomas, near the Pasig City Hall and the EPD headquarters.

Though Boratong financed the shabu tiangge, pushers in the area were either Muslims or natives of Samar. The remaining members of Boratong’s group transferred operations to Barangay Pinagbuhatan, where the two factions are locked in a turf war, investigators said.

“There are killings in the area involving the two warring groups of Boratong and the local police are helpless to stop them,” a police official in Camp Crame said.  – With Cecille Suerte Felipe