Gunman in motorcycle shop owner’s killing arrested

CALAPAN CITY, Oriental Mindoro — Police have arrested the hitman who allegedly shot and killed a 49-year-old businessman inside his motorcycle parts shop in Pinamalayan town, this province last Wednesday.

Senior Superintendent Christopher C. Birung, provincial director of the Oriental Mindoro Police Provincial Office (PPO), said at least three witnesses identified Victor Generato, alias “Wowie,” of Sitio 6, Barangay Merit, Victoria town as the gunman who killed businessman Rodel D. Cunanan.

Cunanan was entertaining customers at his Cycle Zone Trading at 5:30 p.m. when a gunman wearing camouflage shorts approached him and shot him in the head using a .22-caliber handgun, said Birung.

Chief Inspector Alvimar M. Flores, local chief of police, said the gunman casually walked away after the shooting, then boarded a waiting Enduro-type motorcycle, driven by another suspect, that sped off in the direction of the neighboring municipality of Soccoro.

Flores said investigators tracked down Generato in Victoria and presented him to witnesses, who positively identified him as the gunman who shot Cunanan.

Birung said Generato has a standing warrant of arrest for highway robbery in Lemery, Batangas issued in 2006 and is out on bail for a carnapping case in Victoria in 2013, while his trial for murder and illegal possession of firearm in Socorro in 2013 is on-going.

Chief Superintendent Wilben M. Mayor, regional director of the Police Regional Office-4B, said Generato’s cohort now being hunted while investigators are determining the motive Cunanan’s murder.

Flores said probers gathered that the victim figured in an altercation with someone inside his shop last May.