2 hostage dramas grip Iloilo City; 2 dead

ILOILO CITY — Two hostage dramas gripped the city yesterday: one at the police station in Mandurriao district where a lawman and the hostage-taker were killed after a 30-minute exchange of gunfire, and the other, at the courtroom where a death convict held a prosecutor at bay for half an hour.

The hostage drama at the Mandurriao detachment began at about 1:30 p.m. when John Randy Tupaz barged into the station, apparently to seek help.

Feeling that he was not being given attention, Tupaz grabbed a M-16 rifle which duty officer, Chief Inspector Ruel Pama, left on the rack to answer a phone call, and ran amuck inside the detachment, taking everyone there hostage.

Policemen laid siege to the station and exchanged gunfire with Tupaz for 30 minutes. Tupaz was hit in the chest and hand, and died while being attended to at the Western Visayas Medical Center.

Thinking that everything was over, Superintendent Leo Purtellano was about to get water from a dispenser when he found the lifeless body of PO2 Jesus Melendez Jr. near it.

Superintendent Rolando Rabara, city police director, said Melendez, 40, chief of the administrative section, was probably shot by Tupaz while seeking cover near the water dispenser.

Rabara said he has received reports that Tupaz was mentally ill.

Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice, inmate John Nequia took prosecutor Portia Cabalum hostage after he was sentenced to death yesterday morning.

No one was injured in the hostage drama. Nequia surrendered to police authorities after negotiations.