Man kills 2, takes 2 sons hostage

MABALACAT, Pampanga — Police critically shot a 45-year-old man as he held hostage his two children after he had killed a mother and son at the Mawaque resettlement here Monday morning.

Superintendent Renato Soria, this town’s police chief, said the suspect, Romy Cinco, arrived here last Sunday and spent the night in the house of his friend Rogelio Ibluy, 40, and the latter’s mother, Caridad, 59.

At about 9 a.m. the following day, neighbors heard Cinco and Rogelio arguing apparently over financial matters.

Later, they saw Ibluy wounded, asking for help as Cinco pursued him with a kitchen knife.

Witnesses said Cinco then returned to the house and stabbed Ibluy’s mother.

As barangay officials and lawmen got near, Cinco locked the house and took his children Ronamay, 5, and Satur, 3, hostage.

After nearly an hour of negotiations, Cinco asked for his wife, who was in Bulacan, and offered to turn his son over to SPO1 Florencio Manaois.

"As (Manaois) approached to take the boy, (Cinco) tried to stab him, but hit only the metal badge on his breast," Soria said.

This prompted another policeman, SPO4 Rodolfo Madlambayan, to fire at Cinco to prevent him from harming his children.

Cinco was rushed to the Mabalacat district hospital where he was reported to be in critical condition. — Ding Cervantes