By Jennifer P. Rendon
Amid the number of unsolved murder incidents perpetrated by riding-in-tandem gunmen, the Iloilo City Police Office (ICPO) said its campaign against motorcycle-riding suspects (MRS) never waned.
Colonel Eric Dampal, Iloilo City police chief, said that ICPO is not losing track of these cases “and we are still making our best efforts to identify the perpetrators and solve these cases.”
Dampal cited the lack of witnesses as the reason why police investigators found it hard to pin down the suspects.
“We are trying our best and we will appreciate if there are witnesses that are willing to cooperate,” he said.
The issue of police’s “failure” to solve riding-in-tandem killings surfaced anew after a cousin of a slain Western Visayas drug personality became the latest victim of such assassination.
Agustin Odicta alias Nonoy, 52, a resident of Barangay Tanza-Baybay, City Proper district, Iloilo City was sitting at the fruit stall of his cousin in Barangay Tabucan, Mandurriao, when he was repeatedly shot early evening of February 18.
Odicta instantly died from multiple injuries on his body and head.
Witnesses claimed that the motorcycle-riding suspects drove past by Odicta and shot him for around five times.
There were other persons at the fruit stand, but the gunmen spared them.
On February 16, riding-in-tandem gunmen tried to kill another man at Jaro, Iloilo City. But Rodolfo Melicado Jr., 36, of Barangay Ubian, Maasin, Iloilo, was lucky to have survived the attack.
The suspects in both incidents remain unidentified.
