Boy, 15, accidentally kills best friend, 17

Teen ‘playing’ with gun shoots pal in head

FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD Digoy was playing with a gun in his room when he shot the head of his best friend last Wednesday afternoon. The friend later died.

Chelo “Tyson” Valenzona, 17, succumbed to a gunshot wound in his nape in the hospital at 11:30 p.m.

Digoy (not his real name) surrendered to police and confessed that he had just shot his friend.

Lack of motive

Initial investigation led by SPO2 Rommel Bancog showed that what happened in Sitio Kamagong, Barangay Lahug, Cebu City might have been an accident.

“Had he any intentions to kill the victim, he would have escaped,” said PO3 Edario Manatad, who assisted Bancog in the investigation.

Manatad said that Valenzona and Digoy were inside the latter’s room when the gun was fired.

Digoy’s two grandmothers, who were playing a card game outside the house, thought at first that the explosion came from a nearby refrigerator.

“I thought it exploded,” one of them told Sun.Star Cebu.

(The paper is withholding the names of the minor’s relatives to protect his identity.)

When they checked the room, however, they found Valenzona unconscious with blood gushing from his head.

They then called the attention of Valenzona’s mother, Isabel Sunit, and rushed him to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center.

Digoy also went with them. He surrendered to police in the hospital.

Missing weapon

But the 9mm revolver believed to be used by Digoy was not found after the incident, Manatad said.

“Who owns the gun? The boy wouldn’t say,” PO3 Edario Manatad of the Homicide Section said.

Digoy’s father said he is also clueless as to where his son got the gun.

He said Digoy could not be asked for comments yesterday as he was still traumatized.

Isabel and a relative went to the Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office yesterday afternoon to file a criminal complaint of ho- micide against Digoy.

She said if there is any way that they can file a heavier complaint against Digoy, she would do it.

“Suod kaayo na sila, wa ko kahibaw unsay hinungdan ana (They were so close to each other. I had no idea why it happened),” she said.

She said Digoy’s parents tried to approach her to settle the matter amicably.

“Di pa nako kayang moatubang sa ilaha. Gang-

utngot pa gihapon akong balatian nila (I could not look at them in the face. My heart still aches because of them),” she said.

Isabel and Digoy’s father both said the two boys had been friends since their childhood.

“Wa to niya tuyo-a, bespren gud na sila (My son did not intend for it to happen because they were best friends),” the father said.

Both of them were students of the Lahug National High School.