5 rob-kidnap gang men slain in P’sinan shootout

By Jennelyn Mondejar

BAYAMBANG, Pangasinan – Five members of a notorious robbery-kidnapping syndicate were killed while another one escaped in a shootout with elements of the local and provincial police, Criminal Investigation and Detection Group and Presidential Anti-Crime Emergency Response here before dawn on April 30.

Senior Supt. Isagani Nerez, provincial police director, told the media PACER tipped them off that the syndicate was set to operate in Pangasinan.

This prompting him to order his men, along with PACER and CIDG, to put up blocking forces in various entry and exit points in the province.

The syndicate members passed through Camiling town in Tarlac en route to Bayambang where a police checkpoint has been in place for several years now.
When the police-CIDG-PACER team tried to flag down the suspects’ unlicensed, maroon Nissan Sentra, they were fired at, triggering a 20-minute shootout.

Nerez said no one among the lawmen was wounded, but a bullet hit the windshield of a patrol car of the Bayambang police.

Nerez said the wounded suspects were rushed to the Bayambang District Hospital, but the attending physicians said they died on arrival.

“We really wanted them alive so we properly observed the standard operating procedures by rushing them to the hospital,” Nerez said. “It’s unfortunate that they died. If only they were alive, we could have extracted more information from them.”

Four of the slain suspects were identified through ID cards in their wallets as Joseph Galvez, Agripino Absalon Jr., Dondon Lubris, and Santiago Gongaya. The fifth suspect was still unidentified as of press time.

Police recovered two Cal.45 pistols, a super .38 pistol, a grenade, and four cellular phones from the slain suspects, described to be in their early 30s.

Based on their information, Nerez said the syndicate had operated in Regions 1 (Ilocos region) and 3 (Central Luzon) and that its members sometimes hid in Pangasinan.