4 drug suspects slain, 4 arrested

At least four suspected users and pushers were shot dead in Metro Manila over the past two days while four others were arrested.

In Manila, Renato Bernardino de Guzman, 53, and Jaime Morales Alcober, 22, were wounded in an alleged shootout during a drug sting along Herbosa street in Tondo at around 12:35 a.m. yesterday.

They were declared dead on arrival at the Tondo Medical Center before 1 a.m.

A .38 caliber revolver with three bullets and a spent casing, six sachets said to contain shabu, three aluminum strips and three improvised tooters with traces of suspected shabu were recovered from the crime scene.

Leonardo Espero Baluyot, 31; Darwin Rizada Escorpion, 23; and Daniel Guantia Batac, 47, were caught playing an illegal gambling game in Sta. Cruz on Wednesday night. Three P1 coins, bet money worth P600 and three sachets of alleged shabu were recovered from the three suspects.

Danilo Estavillo Santos, 57, a member of the Batang City Jail gang, was arrested in a drug sting in San Andres. Police seized 2.3 grams of shabu, with a street value of P3,000, from him.

In Marikina, construction worker Dante Aton, 32, and his partner Cherry Maria Mansan, 30, were shot dead by three armed assailants who barged into their house yesterday.

The two victims were categorized as pushers in Barangay Fortune’s drug watchlist, police said.

Volunteer killed

In Mandaluyong, Barangay Addition Hills volunteer watchman Reynaldo Ramirez was shot by one of four men he and his colleagues were about to arrest for engaging in a drug session on Wednesday.

Ramirez, 26, was declared dead on arrival at the Mandaluyong City Medical Center from a gunshot wound in the head.

None of the four suspects were arrested, though the man who shot Ramirez, identified only as Pusit, is the subject of a police manhunt.