Beauty contestant dies in a shooting incident

Joining beauty pageants could be risky.

In fact, it could cost you your life like a candidate for a barangay fiesta in the hinterlands of Danao City, who was shot dead during the counting of the votes last Saturday night.

The 18-year-old aspirant for the beauty title, Irish Monte Bakang, was attending the counting of the votes or the beauty contest with her parents when tragedy struck.

SPO1 Jose Relampagos said Bakang is from barangay Lawaan of the said city, but was in the neighboring barangay Magtagobtob where she was a candidate in a beauty contest.

Investigators learned that as the organizers were about to announce, who won the contest based on votes when the lights around the basketball court suddenly went off.

As darkness beset the place a single gun shot rang and the victim was heard crying. When people checked, Bakang was already slumped on the ground and bleeding from a wound on her side.

Relatives rushed Bakang to the Danao City Distruct Hospital using a motorcycle for hire, but she was later on transferred to Cebu City due to the severity of her wound.

She succumbed at the hospital in the city.

Relampagos said that Bakang was leading on the canvassing of votes that night, but could not determine if the crime had something to do with the contest.

The absence of a light source also made it difficult to pin point the triggerman and he could have also missed his target because of that circumstance, the police said.

The police have difficulties sending more men to investigate the case yesterday since the police station was undermanned and the area is reportedly infiltrated by rebels. - Edwin Ian Melecio