Shootout or rubout?

By LITO RULONA, Correspondent

POLICE riddled a man and his pregnant wife with bullets during an alleged shootout in El Salvador city in Misamis Oriental at dawn yesterday.

The police operation however was marred by allegations that it was a rubout, and not a shootout as law enforcers claimed it to be.

Police identified the fatalities as Mark John Pagaluyos, 31, of Zone 9, Barangay Poblacion, El Salvador, and his wife Sheryl Grace Tapales, 30, of Barangay Kamasagan, Lala, Lanao del Norte. The woman was seven months pregnant.

They succumbed to multiple gunshots to the head and all over.

Authorities maintained that the killings were a result of  a five-minute shootout. They alleged that Pagaluyos and the pregnant Tapales had fought back with a caliber .45 caliber pistol and caliber .22 Magnum revolver.

Police also alleged that they found two sachets of suspected shabu, marijuana and several drug paraphernalia in the house.

But Leody Pagaluyos, mother of the slain man, quoted villagers as telling her that the police barged into the house and, without provocation, started firing shots at the couple who were in bed.

“They (Pagaluyos and his wife) were sleeping,” the grieving mother said. “It was not a proper police operation.”

She said her son had just been released from the Lanao del Norte Provincial Jail because of murder and illegal drugs cases.

Police said Pagaluyos and his wife were “drug personalities” who had responded to the  “Operation Tokhang” campaign.

Insp. Edilberto Carillo of the El Salvador police said law enforcers were only forced to use their weapons because Pagaluyos and the pregnant woman resisted and fought back.

Carillo said Pagaluyos was a known drug pusher, and based on intelligence reports, he was armed.

“Busa sa dihang misulod na mi sa area, wala na gyud mikumpyansa,” he said.

He said it was a buy-and-bust operation, and that the police were greeted with gunfire when they barged into Pagaluyos’s house.

“Subo kaayo kami sa nahitabo kay ang mga suspected drug personalities misukol man sa mga polis. Nakamatikod sila nga dunay mga polis nagpalibot sa ilang balay,” he said.

Carillo said the couple had a pending case of double murder and frustrated murder, drugs sale and both were linked to carnapping activities.

He said the fatalities were members of a crime group led by Pagaluyos’s elder brother who was also killed in a shootout in Lanao del Norte.

“Bag-o pa kini sila sa El Salvador human sa kagubot didto sa Lanao del Norte,” Carillo said

Those who killed the couple were members of the El Salvador City Police Office, Macasandig police station in Cagayan de Oro and the Regional Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Group.