Wai Kurat chief-of-staff killed in QC ambush

The chief-of-staff of Compostella Valley Rep. Manuel “Wai Kurat” Zamora died after being ambushed just as he was about to leave his house in Quezon City and go to work yesterday morning.

Three assailants approached Robert Delano’s blue Toyota Fortuner, carrying a congressional “8” plate, and repeatedly shot the victim outside his house on  K-3 Street near corner Judge Jimenez Street in Barangay Kamuning at around 8:20 a.m.

Doctor Bonnie Chua of the Jesus Delgado Memorial Medical Center said Delano no longer had a pulse when he was brought to the hospital. “We tried to revive him for 45 to 50 minutes. He expired at 9:45 a.m.,” Chua told reporters outside the hospital moments after Delano was declared dead. According to the doctor, Delano, 48, was shot in the chin and the slug remained stuck in his skull.

As of yesterday, a police source said they were looking into the possibility that the ambush was related to “conflicting mining interests in Compostella Valley” or the victim’s “dealings in Congress as the president of the association of chiefs-of-staff.”

Quezon City Police District director Senior Superintendent Magtanggol Gatdula said they have created a task force to be headed by Superintendent Franklin Moises Mabanag to investigate the attack. “We will be conducting an investigation and we’ll go to the offices in Congress to ask around; even in residences and other places. Even up to Compostela Valley, our investigators will go there,” Gatdula said.

Mabanag said that based on their actuations, the assailants were hired killers.

Mabanag hinted that Delano was not able to use his caliber .45 handgun kept inside his bag to fire back at the suspects.

Based on the account of Delano’s mother-in-law, Cecilia Lapid, the victim had just come out of the house to go to work when the incident happened.

“We were inside the house when we heard gunshots. When we came out, they were telling us he had been shot,” Lapid said in an interview with The STAR after the incident. Delano’s wife called for assistance from the neighbors and brought the victim to the nearby hospital.

Metro Manila police chief Director Jefferson Soriano said that based on their initial analysis, the suspects staked out, waited for Delano’s vehicle to emerge from the house and committed the crime “very casually.”

Soriano said the suspects aimed at the victim’s head to guarantee his death.

The vehicle driven by Delano had five holes from gunshots – two in the windshield, two in the driver’s side window and another in the rear right passenger window where a slug exited. The slugs recovered from the crime scene came from a caliber .45 handgun.

Workers at a nearby burger joint saw what happened and immediately told a patrolling village watchman, said Superintendent Aspirinio Cabula, commander of the QCPD-Station 10. “The tanod tailed the three suspects who walked casually away from the crime scene. They reached even E. Rodriguez Sr. Avenue. When the suspects continued walking up to Ermin Garcia Street, the tanod stopped for fear of his own life,” Cabula said.

At that point, the village watchman chanced upon a patrolling police car, which he approached and boarded to scour the area and try to locate the suspects, Cabula said.

Zamora said the congressional ‘8’ plate attached to Delano’s sports utility vehicle was among the four of those license plates issued to him as a lawmaker.

Sought for his comment, Zamora ruled out the possibility that he could be the real target of the assassination. “If I were the target, why did it happen at his (Delano’s) house?” he asked.

The Mindanao lawmaker, who gained popularity when he claimed in a TV program that he goes to Batasan complex using his bicycle, was also perplexed as to why his chief-of-staff was killed when he neither had rivals nor foes.

“Wala akong nakikita na posibleng kalaban niya.” In a radio interview, Zamora said that Delano would routinely pick him up at his house and then head to the Batasan complex to report for work.

Zamora said he was already considering going into hiding until he finds out that he is not the target. Speaker Prospero Nograles nonetheless provided him with security escorts to make sure of his safety.

Nograles condemns ambush

“I strongly condemn the cold-blooded ambush-killing of Delano. This is a cowardly act and a clear disregard of human life,” said Nograles of the chief-of-staff of “Wai Kurat.”

“I call upon every citizen to be more vigilant and fully cooperate with our law enforcement agencies in bringing to justice those responsible,” he said in a statement. “Each of us has a responsibility to society.”

“I am confident that the PNP and other concerned law enforcement and investigative agencies will immediately serve justice to whom it is due,” the Speaker said. “We must bind together to put a stop to criminality that has victimized countless citizens due to total disregard of the law and to human dignity by a few,” he added.

“It is urgent now, more than ever, to enhance the surveillance and intelligence gathering capabilities of our law enforcement agencies because criminals respect nothing and no one,” Nograles said.

House Minority Leader Ronaldo Zamora said they are “expressing our outrage and our sympathy to the family (of Delano).” “It’s not just a loss of our House staff, it’s also a loss for the whole House. We hope that in the end justice will be done.”