Two persons, including a businessman earlier tagged by law enforcers as a member of the New People’s Army (NPA), were separately found dead due to multiple gunshot wounds in Barangay 11 (Gawahon), Victorias City, on Friday, July 10.
The fatalities were identified as Jerome Seballos, 57, and Alex Cunanan, 59, according to PCol. Dennis Wenceslao, Negros Occidental police director.
Investigators are still determining the motive for the killings, Wenceslao said.
Seballos’ body was found in Sitio 5, Barangay 11, at 5:30 a.m., the police director said.
The police investigation disclosed that at around 5:30 a.m., several residents living near the scene of the incident heard multiple gunshots. Shortly after, two residents saw the lifeless body of Seballos lying near a motorcycle with gunshot wounds to the head.
The body of Cunanan was found about two kilometers away from the first shooting scene in the same sitio, Wenceslao said.
Police investigation showed that at about 6 a.m., the son of Cunanan was forcefully brought by seven masked men to a poultry farm where his father was located.
When Cunanan saw the masked men, he tried to run away, but they fired at him. As a result, the victim sustained multiple gunshot wounds to different parts of his body, the police said.
Seballos, a businessman, was one of five alleged members of the New People’s Army who were arrested during a warrant service operation along the Circumferential Road in Barangay Matab-ang, Talisay City, Negros Occidental, in April.
The group was allegedly involved in an armed encounter with the 79th Infantry Battalion in Toboso, Negros Occidental, from which they had initially managed to escape, the PRO NIR said in a previous press statement.
Seballos was later released from police custody.*
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