By Glazyl Y. Masculino
BACOLOD City – A homicide investigation is underway following the death of a call center agent in City Heights Subdivision, Barangay Taculing, last Saturday.
Police Captain Dax Santillan, the chief of Police Station 6, stated that the identity of the 29-year-old victim from Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental, is being withheld at the family’s request.
The victim, who was employed at a Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) company, was residing locally.
According to Santillan, the agent was awaiting friends around 4:30 a.m. to go to a team-building event when he was assaulted by an unidentified individual.
The victim sustained chest and back wounds and was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The police were alerted to the incident by a concerned citizen reporting a suspected shooting. However, Santillan noted that they could not ascertain the nature of the injuries as the family declined an autopsy.
The investigation is exploring the possibility of a drug-related motive, as the victim’s sibling had previously been arrested on drug charges. Santillan suggested that the victim could have been targeted by his sibling’s adversaries or may have been involved in illicit activities himself.
Authorities are also examining the victim’s past relationships to determine any possible connection to the crime.
Santillan reported that while the victim’s valuables were found undisturbed, his cell phone was missing. Despite this, they are not treating the case as a robbery gone wrong but as a murder, based on the nature of the victim’s injuries.
Currently, there are no suspects, but efforts to uncover CCTV footage in the vicinity are ongoing.
