NBI director Reynaldo Wy—coco said the three suspects, Isagani Quidato, Alexander Bermoy and Ronaldo Boncaras, were guns-for-hire and are not residents of Masbate.
Wycoco declined to identify who hired the three suspects.
Espinosa was attending a dance at a plaza in the coastal village of Bantigue when he was killed. He had just finished dancing with a woman and was escorting her back to her seat when Quidato, positioned some three meters from Espinosa, allegedly opened fire with a handgun from the plaza’s fence, the NBI said.
While Quidato was firing, Bermoy and Boncaras, who were also outside the fence, opened fire with automatic weapons, the NBI added.
The three gunmen, with their still unidentified accomplices, escaped aboard a motorized banca.
Wycoco said the suspects are now being hunted in the remote barangays of Milagros and Cataingan, in Masbate.
The NBI said Quidato and Bermoy have standing arrest warrants.
Besides Espinosa, three bystanders — Fidela Marcos, Junecil Cunanan and Henry Regalado Jr. — were killed in the incident.
Four others — Ruel Gonzales, Filipina Manguardia, Josefa Cinco and one Botoy Bulig — were wounded.
The NBI said Espinosa sustained several gunshot wounds in the head and different parts of the body from an M-16 rifle and caliber .45 and 9 mm handguns.
Espinosa died while being rushed to the Masbate City Hospital.