Men suspected of trying to kill policeman charged

The Cebu City Police Office has filed a frustrated murder case against three men suspected of trying to kill traffic policeman PO3 Allan Magalso last June 27 along Katipunan Street, barangay Labangon, Cebu City. The motive was found to be job-related.

Homicide Section officer-in-charge Insp. Erlando Metante said three witnesses positively identified the suspects through pictures and footage from an ABS-CBN file video of a melee that ensued after the Traffic Group and City Traffic Office Management implemented city ordinance 1837 barring PUJs from outside Cebu City to pass through downtown routes.

One of the suspects is a PUJ driver who was allegedly seen spying outside the compound where Magalso was living in A. Lopez Street, barangay Calamba a day before the victim was shot.

Charged were the alleged shooter Noel Gabasa, Welmer Alcontin and a woman named Jennifer Albisa, members of the Nagkahiusang Drayber sa Sugbu, Metante said.

A man who passed by the moment the shooting started said he saw a man and a woman, both armed, scampering away from a nearby church at the said street. When he learned the victim in the shooting was a policeman he went to the Homicide Section and told them what he saw that night.

Two days later, the said witness was accompanied by investigators to ABS-CBN in barangay Jagobiao, Mandaue City, to see if he could identify any of the people involved in the footage of a traffic melee a week before Magalso was shot.

He identified Alcontin and Albisa through the file video as the ones he saw the night Magalso was shot.

A second witness, who claimed he was just five meters away from where the shooting happened, tagged Gabasa as the one who shot Magalso.

He claimed that he was attending a relative's wake at a nearby funeral parlor. In his affidavit he said he saw Magalso stop the two traffic violators and the moment Gabasa arrived then shot Magalso before fleeing.

The witness, who happens to be a neighbor of Magalso in barangay Calamba, alleged that he saw Gabasa coming from the corner of N. Bacalso and Katipunan Street, maneuver a sharp U-turn and slowly park his red Krypton motorcycle near the witness's motorcycle was parked.

He said that Gabasa was wearing a brown bonnet that was rolled up, a jacket and denim pants.

Gabasa allegedly walked slowly up to Magalso's back then fired, prompting the witness to duck for cover behind his motorcycle. He heard two more shots then saw Gabasa riding his motorcycle towards barangay Labangon with his bonnet now rolled down covering his face.

The third witness is Magalso's brother-in-law who later identified Gabasa through the pictures shown to him by investigators last July 7.

He said that he saw Gabasa twice the day before Magalso was shot, the suspect was allegedly on his motorcycle infront of their compound's gate on the morning of June 26. Later in the afternoon he again saw Gabasa doing a U-turn and speeding away from the front gate of their compound.

During the melee a week before Magalso was shot, the policeman said Gabasa told him that there will be bloodshed if his vehicle is impounded. - Edwin Ian Melecio of Banat News