Assassins gun down provincial board member

Suspected hired assassins ambushed a provincial board member of Misamis Occidental and his close-in bodyguards in Ermita, Manila, yesterday afternoon.

Board member Renato Parojinog, 42, died at about 5:30 p.m. yesterday while undergoing treatment at the Manila Doctors Hospital. Police said he sustained a gunshot wound in the right chest. Also rushed to the same hospital was Parojinog’s close-in bodyguard, Perlito Agapon, who sustained a gunshot wound in the abdomen.

According to Superintendent Manolo Martinez, Ermita police station commander, Parojinog, a brother of Osamis City Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog; his trusted close-in bodyguard Emmanuel Roa and two other bodyguards had just stepped inside a "Cedielyn" taxicab with plate number PWR-925 at about 3:30 p.m. after walking from the Corporate Inn Hotel along T.M. Kalaw Street where they were billeted. Police said Parojinog was in Manila to attend a local government seminar.

Military sources said the Parojinog brothers were the founders of the Kuratong Baleleng in the ‘70s. The Kuratong Baleleng was originally composed of militiamen and soldiers and was organized by the military to go after the communist New People’s Army in Mindanao.

Police said the victims were turning at the corner of Maria Orosa Street and United Nations Avenue on its way to the Robinson’s Place Mall when it stopped on a red light at the intersection going to Roxas Boulevard.

Witnesses said a lone gunman in shorts and armed with at least two caliber .45 pistols, appeared from the McDonald’s restaurant at the corner of Maria Orosa and UN Avenue and immediately went to the taxi’s rear passenger seat where Parojinog was seated.

Immediately, two shots rang out. The gunman then exchanged shots with Parojinog’s bodyguards. The exchange of fire also left at least two bystanders slight wounded after they were hit by stray bullets. Police said the bystanders, mango vendor Remy Cordero and a woman customer of the McDonald’s restaurant, were both shot in legs.

Police said the suspect, after the exchange of fire, escaped aboard a motorcycle going towards Roxas Boulevard. Witnesses said the gunman rode in tandem with another suspect. Police speculate that at least more than three suspects were involved in the ambush. Witnesses described the gunman as about five feet tall of slim built and or dark complexion.

"According to Roa, he (Parojinog) had been receiving death threats. His (Parajinog’s) house was even bombed. It is possible that the gunmen followed him to Manila," said Martinez.

Police recovered five caliber .45 spent shells and two slugs at the crime scene. Investigators are still establishing the motive for the ambush. For his part, Ozamis City Mayor Renato Parajinog said politics was behind his brother’s ambush.