2 suspects eyed in slay try on ‘jueteng lord’

SAN FERNANDO CITY, Pampanga — Police said suspected jueteng lord Melchor Caluag, alias Ngongo, might have been set up for liquidation by two individuals who failed show up for an appointment with him when he and his companion were shot and wounded here last Monday.

"We are waiting for the recovery of Caluag and his companion. They would be able to provide us with the identities of the two persons they were supposed to meet at the Shakey’s outlet where they were later shot on their way out after the two failed to show up," said Senior Superintendent Sonny Cunanan, city police chief.

Caluag, who was shot in the abdomen and in the shoulder, and his companion, Ariel Trinidad, who had a bullet wound in the arm, are now reportedly out of danger and are being tightly secured by the police in different hospitals.

Investigators are waiting for their conditions to improve before they are interrogated.

"It would seem that the rendezvous at the pizza parlor was a set-up," Cunanan said, adding that probers, however, still have no clues yet on the identities of the two individuals.

He said the police are still eyeing other possible angles, including rivalry on jueteng operations in areas where Caluag had allegedly been operating before the police clamped down on the illegal numbers game early this month.

Cunanan said the green owner-type jeep which the gunmen used was traced to one Jose Mallari of Urdaneta, Pangasinan. It was found abandoned at the Robinson’s mall about half a kilometer away from where the shooting happened.

Caluag, elected chairman of Barangay Dolores in this city’s business district, and Trinidad had just emerged from the Shakey’s pizza outlet beside the Mel-Vin building which he owns when two men approached and fired at them with a caliber .45 pistol. The gunmen boarded the owner-type jeep parked across the road, and sped off toward the Robinson’s mall where they apparently mixed with the crowd of shoppers after abandoning the vehicle.

"The way the suspects carried out the shooting indicated that they were not professional killers," Cunanan said.

Senior Superintendent Rene Ong, deputy intelligence and investigation chief of the regional police command, downplayed fears that the slay attempt on Caluag might spark armed clashes between his supporters and his rivals in alleged jueteng operations.

"The camp of Caluag has no history of violence," he said.

There were speculations that Caluag’s rivals could be behind the shooting, but probers said they are not discounting other possible suspects.

"The perpetrators could be armed communist groups whose demand for so-called ‘revolutionary taxes’ could have been ignored," Ong said.

Earlier, Chief Superintendent Oscar Calderon, Central Luzon police director, discounted politics as a possible motive, saying that Caluag had already given up his plan to vie for the chairmanship of the city’s Association of Barangay Captains (ABC) due to criticisms from local folk and the media.

The ABC elections were held the day after Caluag was shot, with Barangay San Agustin chairman Do Santos re-elected by his colleagues.