By Jennifer P. Rendon
The two firearms used in the January 19 twin killings are not registered on the Philippine National Police (PNP) database.
Police Colonel Enrique Ancheta, chief of the PNP Regional Crime Laboratory Office (RCLO-6), said the caliber .9mm and caliber .45 pistols used in killing Alain Muller and Delfin Britanico on Jan 19, 2020 were not registered on Integrated Ballistics Information System (IBIS) based on the ballistics examination done on the empty shells recovered at the crime scenes.
“Negative po. Hindi registered ang mga baril. They’re loose firearms,” he said.
But Ancheta said the ballistics test yielded another important information: the same caliber .9mm pistol was used in a shooting incident in Iloilo April 18, 2012.
“We couldn’t get into the specifics of the incident because it will need another request. The record only showed that the bullets were taken from a ‘found dead person,’ date of the incident and the name of the SOCO investigator,” Ancheta said.
It will also take a week for the IBIS to come out with the results of the ballistics examination.
But on the case of Britanico and Muller’s murder, it was hastened to two days only.
Days after the twin murder that shook Iloilo City a day before the Dinagyang week, investigators learned that the bullets in both cases came from the same firearms.
Muller was peppered with bullets at 12:00 noon of Jan. 19 at Locsin Street in Barangay Cuartero, Jaro district.
Thirty minutes later, Britanico, 36, a resident of Mirasol Subdivision, Dicen Street, La Paz, was shot dead while navigating Barangay Nabitasan, La Paz.
Nine empty shells of caliber .9mm pistol, five empty shells of caliber .44 pistol, and eight deformed slugs were recovered in Jaro while six shells of caliber .44 and three empty shells of caliber .9mm and two deformed slugs were taken in La Paz.
While the murder is inter-connected, investigators can’t still say if it was planned or not.
While there appeared to be no doubt that Muller was intentionally killed, the murder of Britanico is still a puzzle.
Police Captain Shella Mae Sangrines, Iloilo City Police Office (ICPO) spokesperson, said that while Muller’s murder was planned, Britanico could have just been collateral damage.
“It’s possible that Britanico passed by the area when the gunmen killed Muller. Thinking that they were identified, they ran after him,” she said.
Police investigators are not also discounting the possibility that Britanico was killed following a traffic altercation, as witnesses claimed to have seen the victim intensely talking to his killers shortly before the incident.
“But we could not make any conclusive statement for now. Our investigators are doing lots of follow-up to determine the killers,” she said.
Even earlier, several reports pointed that the getaway vehicle used in killing Muller is the same as the vehicle of the suspects who killed Britanico.
Police earlier identified it to look like a Mitsubishi Adventure AUV.
