http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/ceb/2006/06/08/news/assassins.mock.us.kill.1.more.html

Alone masked man gunned down a suspected snatcher near the barangay hall in Tejero, Cebu City shortly before noon yesterday.

Niel Borinaga, 28, was killed a week after the US government raised its concern on the unabated vigilante-style killings in the city.

Borinaga is considered the 163rd victim since the killings started on Dec. 22 2004. None of the previous cases has been solved.

Borinaga’s live-in partner, 27-year-old Ivy Agujar, lamented why the victim had to be killed when he was already jailed for a crime he had committed. The couple has two children, ages five and seven.

Agujar told Sun.Star Cebu that Borinaga was a snatcher but had tried to reform by becoming a truck boy.

Augustine “Botyok” Pijo, who was with Borinaga during the attack, told SPO2 Jay Yballe, team leader of responding homicide investigators, that Borinaga was shot in the vicinity of Cenapro Inc., located across the Tejero Barangay Hall on T. Padilla Ext., at 11:30 a.m.

Pijo said Borinaga was watching “dama,” a local board game played using crowns of bottles that Pijo and another companion were playing, when a black motorcycle stopped near them.

The motorcycle rider, who was alone and covered his face with a piece of cloth, shot Borinaga at close range in the head.

The man finished Borinaga off with another shot in the head after he fell on the pavement.

Pijo said he failed to see where the gunman headed after carrying out the crime, because all of them ran away for safety.

He said the gunman threatened to kill them.

“Na-rattle na ming tanan. Nanagan nami kay miingon man siya (gunman), ‘Unsa, apil mo?’, unya nagwara-wara sa iyang armas (We panicked and ran when he said, ‘You wan’t to be next?’ as he brandished his gun),” Pijo said.

Scene of the Crime Operations personnel recovered two empty shells of a .45 pistol.

Mario Gantalaw, a tanod of Barangay Tejero, told Sun.Star Cebu that Borinaga had gained notoriety in the barangay as a snatcher and engaged in “akyat truck” activities, preying on trucks that go to Cenapro to have their cargoes weighed before these were delivered to different areas.

Borinaga’s live-in partner Agujar, in a separate interview, admitted that Borinaga was once engaged in snatching.

She said that sometime in 1998, Borinaga was jailed at the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center for theft.

He was released after the judge reportedly dismissed the case for lack of evidence.

“Pero nganong gidaginut pa man mi? Wala na may pili (But why must they pick on us?),” Agujar told Sun.Star Cebu, while comforting her seven-year-old daughter who was crying while watching her dead father nearby.

As she hugged her mother, Nina (real name withheld) kept on telling Agujar to call the police because her father has been killed.

“Manawag lagi ko pulis lagi. Gipatay akong papa (I will call the police. My father has been killed),” Nina said.

Agujar said Borinaga, who worked as a part-time truck boy, was in the area hoping that somebody would get his service and earn money for Nina’s enrolment for Grade 1.

Apart from Nina, Borinaga also has a five-year-old child with Agujar.

Agujar said she has no idea who could be behind the killing, because Borinaga has not confided to her about persons who were after him. (JST)