Hospital guard slain in hostage drama

BATANGAS CITY — The father of a teenage comatose patient at the Batangas Regional Hospital here, along with a friend, held hostage and killed a security guard yesterday morning after discovering that the money he had kept inside his bag in the latter’s safekeeping was missing.

Suspect Angelito Dumpay, 40, and his friend Jessie Villar, 34, escaped after killing security guard Ricardo Velasco, 63, but they were arrested by pursuing policemen on board a passenger jeepney.

Police said Dumpay and Villar, both farmers, arrived at the hospital at about 10:30 p.m. Monday to visit the former’s 19-year-old son who was in coma after figuring in a vehicular accident in their Occidental Mindoro hometown of Mamburao.

Velasco, the on-duty guard, asked Dumpay to leave his bag as a standard security measure. Dumpay acceded, but when he claimed the bag at about 2:30 a.m., he found that the P5,000 he had kept inside it was missing.

A verbal tussle ensued between Dumpay and Velasco, with the guard insisting that he did not touch the former’s personal belongings.

While the two were arguing, Villar grabbed Velasco’s caliber .38 service pistol and pointed it at him.

Senior Superintendent Rodolfo Magtibay, Batangas police director, said the two hostage-takers were "incoherent" as police negotiated with them.

Magtibay said the two initially wanted to talk to a TV reporter, then asked for a Mindoro-based police officer, and finally demanded that all policemen leave the hospital premises.

Magtibay also contacted Dumpay’s wife and mother-in-law to convince him to give up, but he ignored their pleas.

An hour later, at about 3:30 a.m., Dumpay and Velasco became desperate, firing up a fire extinguisher as they escaped through a back door.

Policemen heard three gunshots at this time. They later found Velasco slumped on the floor, shot twice in the back and once in the buttocks.

At about 8:45 a.m., police got word that Dumpay and Velasco were walking aimlessly in Barangay Kumintang Ibaba, about 800 meters away from the hospital.

The two were en route to the city proper aboard a passenger jeepney when police caught up with them. — With Ed Amoroso