Suspect in P14-M bank robbery shot

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya — One of the suspects in last year’s P14-million bank robbery in Mt. Province was wounded in a shootout with a top regional official of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in neighboring Ifugao last week.

Lawyer Florencio Binalay, the NBI’s district officer here, said the suspect, Donald Alangwe, sustained eight gunshot wounds in the stomach, shoulders and thigh after shooting it out with NBI-Cagayan Valley director Jose Limmayog in Barangay Sumigar in Banawe, Ifugao.

Binalay said Limmayog chanced upon Alangwe, a suspected member of a notorious highway robbery syndicate, while he (Limmayog), along with his driver and an aide, was on his way to Bontoc, Mt. Province for an official mission.

Upon seeing Alangwe, with a gun tucked on his waist, along the mountain highway, Limmayog immediately alighted from his car and approached him.

Alangwe drew his gun as Limmayog introduced himself from a distance, and fired at the NBI official.

A stray bullet from Alangwe’s gun hit the leg of Nebres Terang, a tourist driver from La Trinidad, Benguet who was then accompanying a Korean tourist.

The NBI is readying charges of frustrated murder and illegal possession of firearms against Alangwe. Probers, meanwhile, are establishing his alleged involvement in several highway robberies in the region.