Gunmen caught on CCTV

By NITZ ARANCON
and JOEY NACALABAN
Correspondents
with CONG B. CORRALES
Associate Editor .

A CCTV camera captured a gunman as he pumped a bullet into a a white Mitsubishi Montero sports utility vehicle near the corner of 6th and 18th streets in Nazareth, this city, at around 7:15 am yesterday.

The shooter, who wore a red sando, blue denims and who wore no mask or hid his face, was riding at the back of a motorcycle driven by another man with a crash helmet. The other assailant wore a white shirt and blue denims, shows the frame of a CCTV recording sent to this paper by a concerned citizen.

“Mahibal-an ra nako one of these days kay wala nag-helmet og daghan CCTV dadto,” said the victim, 45-year-old Barangay 3 councilor Jonathan Joseph Borja of 7th-21st streets, Nazareth.

Borja had come from his pad and was going to visit his younger sister at Xavier Estates at the time of the attack.

It was the second broad daylight gun attack on a man driving his own car in urban Cagayan de Oro in three days. The two attacks had similarities: there were two assailants riding motorcycles in tandem; they carried out the attack in the morning; and the gunmen failed to kill their targets.

SPO2 Joel Tare of the Macasandig police said it was too early to conclude that the attempt on Borja’s life yesterday had something to do with the broad daylight ambush of  Supt. Michael John Deloso at the corner of A. Luna Street and the capitol road on Tuesday morning.

The bullet grazed Borja’s forehead.

Borja said he was certain that yesterday’s attempt on his life had nothing to do with Deloso’s ambush.

“Dili pud mi barkada o kaila ni Deloso,” Borja told the Gold Star Daily.

SPO2 Tare said Borja was driving his Montero, bearing license plates KEX-186, when he was attacked. He said investigators have yet to say what the gunmen’s motive was.

Borja revved up the engine after the bullet shattered the side window at the driver’s seat and rushed himself to the Capitol University Medical City in Gusa for treatment.

“Kusog iyang dagan ug naka-hazard ang iyang signal light. Paglabay niya sa Cogon area, nakit-an ang iyang sakyanan sa mga police nga nag-beat patrol kay na-ay buslot ang samin agi sa bala. Ma-o tong gisundan siya sa mga police sa Cogon, ug nakompirmar nga  gipusil  diay siya,” Tare said.

Ely Adoraflor, Barangay 3 chairman, said he was able to talk to Borja at the hospital and the victim told him that he could not understand why anyone would want him dead.

Adoraflor said Borja knew no enemy with a motive to kill him.

Borja said it might have been a case of mistaken identity.

“Basin pud mistaken identity kay wala man pud koy kontra,” he told the Gold Star Daily.

Borja is chairman of his barangay’s committee on environment. He buys and sells fresh fruits, and owns a farm in Bukidnon.