Father of media slay witness gunned down

The father of a witness in the robbery-slay of RPN-9 cameraman Ralph Ruñez was peppered with bullets in the head by a lone gunman on a motorcycle yesterday in Caloocan City.

Superintendent Napoleon Cuaton, Station Investigation and Detection Management Bureau (SIDMB), identified the victim as Celerino Galarce 47, tricycle driver, of Barrio San Lazaro, Tala, Caloocan City.

Several rounds from a caliber .9 mm pistol hit Galarce in the head splattering his brains on the tricycle floor, where he fell after the first volley that hit him in the chest.

The killing was witnessed by a nine-year-old girl, who was the victim’s passenger.

Though physically unharmed, the girl is still in a state of shock and is now under the care of Barangay 168 Chairman Rolando Rivera.

Senior Inspector Benigno Asilar, Scene of the Crime Operations (SOCO) team leader, said his men recovered three deformed slugs and 10 empty shells fired from a caliber .9 mm.

PO2 Reynaldo Placido, SOCO investigator, said the ambush occurred at around 8 a.m. along St. Joseph Road, on Administration Site, just across the Dr. Jose Rodriguez Memorial Medical Center (formerly Tala Hospital) and the Tala Elementary School.

The victim’s wife said Galarce went out on his tricycle (TR 8637) to buy breakfast at around 7 a.m. As he slowed down on a gentle curve along St. Joseph Road, a passenger hailed him to stop.

Just then, the gunman, on board a blue Kawasaki 125 sidled alongside the victim, stopped and fired hitting him in the chest. As he toppled into the tricycle’s floor, the victim raised his left hand, but the suspect pumped more bullets at pointblank range, all hitting him in the head.

Cuaton said the victim was the father of Charles Galarce, 22, the supposed hitman who backed out of the planned robbery of Ruñez.

"Revenge was the motive for killing," Cuaton told The STAR without elaborating. He said he has ordered a follow-up operation to collar the suspects.

The younger Galarce, now in the custody of the Caloocan police under the witness protection program, pointed to his alleged gangmates Inspector Ryan Limbo, PCP 9, Caloocan City police commander, PO3 Aristotle de Guzman and the late Ernani Magnayon, the man who replaced him as the triggerman in the Ruñez case, as responsible for the Ruñez heist.

Limbo and De Guzman are currently locked up at the Calooocan City Jail. Magnayon, 29, who was jailed in the same facility as Limbo and De Guzman, was shot in the head by a jail officer, who claimed it was an accident. — With Pete Laude