The police are investigating two “persons of interest” in the killing of the general manager of the Northern Negros Electric Cooperative (NONECO) at 12:10 a.m. on Wednesday, December 21, Lt. Jonito Pastrana, Bacolod Police Station 2 officer-in-charge, said.
Danny Pondevilla, 47, who had also served as acting general manager of Central Negros Electric Cooperatives, was found dead in the driver’s seat of his Honda CRV at 16th-Lacson Street, Bacolod City, with a lone gunshot wound on the left side of the occipital region of his brain.
Bacolod Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez said the police have given him an update on the case and promised to bring justice soonest.
“I will follow this case carefully,” he said.
The two persons of interest are the executive secretary of Pondevilla and a NONECO union official who were subjected to paraffin tests, Pastrana said.
The police were still waiting for the results of the test on Wednesday.
They are also looking at CCTV footage in the area for leads, Pastrana said.
One of the angles they are looking at is that the killing could have been work related, he said.
They are not ruling out the possibility that Pondevilla was shot from within the vehicle, he said.
Pondevilla had just left the NONECO Christmas party at L’Fisher Hotel and was driving his white Honda CRV, with his executive secretary on board.
The executive secretary told the police they were going back to Manapla but Pondevilla was groggy because he had drank alcohol at the party.
She said she was trying to grab the steering wheel of the vehicle but she was being pushed away by the victim, Pastrana said.
When they reached 16th-Lacson Street Pondevilla stopped the vehicle in front of BazKet Bacolod and opened the door of the driver’s seat to vomit, she added.
A motorcycle then stopped and a man shot Pondevilla, she told the police. The shooter on board the motorcycle then proceeded towards the north, she added.
However, Pastrana said from their examination of the crime scene numerous questions have cropped up.
Pastrana said the executive secretary who was initially seen at the crime scene disappeared for three hours and when she turned over the cellular phone of Pondevilla she had deleted her exchange of messages with him.
The executive secretary turned over the phone to the sister of the victim who gave it to the police.
They are submitting the phone to the police cybercrime laboratory to determine if the messages that were deleted can be retrieved, Pastrana said.
If the shooter was outside the vehicle on the driver’s side, Pastrana asked why an empty shell was recovered on the opposite side.
The lone gunshot wound exited from the left side of the victim’s face, he said.
Pastrana said he is also wondering why the guards nearby did not hear any gunfire. It is possible that a silencer was used, he said.
He also noted that the hands of Pondevilla were strapped under the seatbelt, which is questionable.
“It appears that there was a conspiracy to commit this crime,” Pastrana said.
The executive secretary is a person of interest because after the shooting she did not go back to the hotel to seek help and instead called a union official to pick her up, Pastrana said.
However, they are also not discounting the possibility that the executive secretary panicked and sought refuge, he said, stressing that the case is still under investigation.
CENECO, NONECO and the Philippine Rural Electric Cooperatives Association issued statements of grief and sympathy to the family of Pondevilla, and calls for justice on Wednesday.*