5 hijackers gunned down in Bulacan

CALUMPIT, Bulacan — Five highway robbers were killed in an encounter with policemen after escaping from a checkpoint here past midnight yesterday.

Senior Superintendent Felizardo Serapio Jr., provincial police director, said the hijackers had commandeered a 10-wheeler truck containing 210 sacks of rice which they had hijacked in Pulilan town, when the lawmen spotted them.

As the policemen approached the truck, the hijackers rammed it into an electric post and then opened fire.

Only two of the slain hijackers were identified as Jeffrey de Lumen of Obrero, Tondo, and Roberto Manzano of Caloocan City. — James Mananghaya, Ric Sapnu and Christina Mendez