2 arrest warrants await Pampanga ‘jueteng lord’

SAN FERNANDO CITY, Pampanga - Suspected big-time jueteng lord Melchor Caluag, alias Ngongo, will find himself facing two more warrants of arrests for illegal gambling after he emerge from the hospital where he is recuperating from gunshot wounds he suffered from an attack here last Monday.

Superintendent Sonny Cunanan, city police chief, said the police had filed two more cases of illegal gambling against Caluag before the shooting incident.

The cases, he said, are under preliminary investigation in the city prosecutor’s office.

Investigators still have no clues on the identities of the gunmen since Caluag, who was shot in the abdomen, and his companion, Ariel Trinidad, who sustained a gunshot wound in the arm, could not yet be interrogated because of their condition.

While Caluag has been pronounced out of danger, he has remained at the intensive care unit of St. Luke’s Hospital in Quezon City where police officers have been securing him.

Last Monday, Caluag and Trinidad were supposed to meet with two individuals at a pizza outlet near the Mel-Vin building which Caluag owns.

The two persons, however, failed to show up, and as Caluag and Trinidad were going out of the pizza parlor, two men fired at them frontally at least six times.

Cunanan said probers learned about Caluag’s appointment with the two still unidentified persons from Caluag’s driver, Pop-eye Dizon, who, however, could not identify the two.

Meanwhile, Cunanan said investigators have failed to locate the owner of the jeep which the gunmen used as getaway vehicle.

The vehicle was found abandoned at the Robinson’s mall less than half a kilometer away from the site of the shooting. The ownership of the jeep, with license plate DJW 132, was traced to one Jose Mallari of Urdaneta City, Pangasinan.

"The owner was reported to have moved to Mandaluyong City. It is possible the jeep was merely stolen from there since the vehicle still had rubber shoes and clothes belonging to a child," Cunanan said.