Grade 5 pupil toys with pa’s gun, shoots pal dead

BACOLOD CITY — He was ready to accept any punishment as long as God would let his playmate live.

But his playmate, 11-year-old Felix Ramilo Quenquero, died while being rushed to the Riverside Medical Center here from Talisay City, 7.4 kilometers north of this city.

A bullet hit Quenquero in the chest when his friend, a fellow Grade 5 pupil, toyed with his father’s gun which accidentally went off.

Investigators said the two boys and five other friends were playing with toy guns Wednesday afternoon when one of them asked about the gun of the young suspect’s father.

The young suspect went inside their house to get the gun from his father’s bedroom. They later toyed with the gun which, by accident, went off, hitting Quenquero, according to SPO3 Amancio Abrera.

The young suspect was placed in the custody of the children and women’s desk of the Talisay City police.

The boy’s father was unable to produce a permit for the gun, which was loaded with five bullets.

Meanwhile, a member of the Singles for Christ allegedly killed his 45-year-old mother when he accidentally fired his 12-gauge homemade shotgun on New Year’s Eve.

Remorseful about the incident, Abelardo Villanueva of Silay City turned the shotgun on himself, blowing his head off, police said.

Police said Villanueva was planning a reconciliation between his parents Luisa and Abelardo Jr. whose relationship turned sour in 1990 when the elder Villanueva got involved with another woman in Bacolod City.

Villanueva and his mother reportedly got into a heated argument because he learned that she had gone to a benefit dance and was seen dancing with another man.

Villanueva accused his mother of not cooperating with his plan to reconcile her with his father. In the course of the verbal tussle, he got his shotgun which reportedly went off accidentally, hitting his mother in the right eye, Silay City police chief Ricardo de la Paz said.