By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA
One of the
members of the Special Weapons and Tactics team who apprehended in a gun chase Calasiao hit man Arnulfo Calaunan lauded me for posting their
pictures in my article “Fil-Am Assassin Nabs after Shooting 3 Persons“ that can be accessed at http://wwwmortzcortigoza.blogspot.com/2013/10/fil-am-assassin-arrested-after-shooting.html.
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| ASSASSIN: American Citizen Arnulfo Calaunan |
I
reciprocated his appreciation with the following:
“I doff my
hat with you guys. I was impressed not only by your operation but your
contraptions of Kevlar helmet and bullet proof vest. Just like your Malaysian and
Singaporean counterparts you bested the Special Forces and the Marines who
contented themselves with their Kevlar Helmet sans the flack jacket in the
Zamboanga siege recently,” I told him in the vernacular.
He confided
to me they bought personally these gears.
“Iyong
Kevlar binili ko iyon sa taga- abroad ng P15 thousand, iyong flack jacket P5
thousand”,
I posed to
him why one of their companions wore a child’s bicycle helmet probably borrowed
from his elementary grade son.
“Kayang
butasin ng Indian Pana ni Boy Pana iyong helmet niya?”
“Baka wala
pa siyang budget pambili ng Kevlar or sadyang komedyante lang iyong kasama namin,”
the SWAT guy retorted to my humor.
Searching for the Culprit
He said when
they were frantically searching Calaunan in the grassy and wet area at the back
of the palatial house of Sta. Barbara Mayor Lito Zaplan at Gabon in Calasiao,
Pangasinan their joker colleague (just like Joker of the flick “Full Metal
Jacket”) humored them by standing nonchalantly at the sideline popping his
cigarette while his companions were extra cautious that Calaunan, who just shot
three persons, was just lurking somewhere to pounce on them.
How the SWAT Discovered Calaunan
“How did you
find the killer?. “ I asked the SWAT guy.
He told me
one of their companions (in my earlier article, the Joker told me it was their
team leader who found the suspect) had a hint already where was Calaunan, a U.S
resident, when they were combing the wild grasses as tall as four feet.
“He saw
paved grasses that betrayed someone had stepped on them”
He added
that their team leader used psychological warfare to prevent Calaunan to fire at them.
“Habang
sinusundan iyong dina-anan niya na damuhan, sumisigaw ang kasama namin na alam
na ng SWAT kong nasaan siya. Sinasabihan na siyang sumuko na siya”
He said his
companion found Calaunan lying on the watery ground aiming his 45 caliber hand
gun.
Between
these seconds of dangerous stand-off between the full battle geared menacing SWAT team
leader and the suspect the latter blinked and surrender his handgun to
the former as other SWAT members rushed up to the scene.
“Magaling
din (Calaunan) alam niya ang sitwasyon niya. May 45 (caliber hand gun) nga siya
naka (Baby) Armalite naman kami. Pumutok siya hindi tatagos ang bala niya sa
helmet o vest namin pero alam niya na kayang butasin ng Armalite ang vest
niya”.
He said that
if Calaunan was an ordinary criminal he already shot the SWAT guy because of
nervousness.
“After we
handcuffed him he begged us that we just kill him”.
But High Ranking Policeman wants him
Alive.
I told the
SWAT friend that as they were searching Calaunan I overheard a high ranking
police official talking on his phone at the scene of the crime (yes Virginia, I was 30 minutes late
after Calaunan fatally shot in the head and shot in the foot two of the body
guards of Longos Barangay Chairman Muja Dave Mesina whom he shot too at the
right side of the body at the "putohan (white cake) stalls of Calasiao, Pangasinan)
ordered the SWAT not to kill the suspect.
“Make him
lived. We need him to squeal who were his companions and master mind,” the
official said in Pilipino.
During the
interrogation of Calaunan he said he was monitoring the movements of Mesina since
August after he arrived from the United States. He was remorseless of what he
has done to the barangay chairman and his companions,” the source said.
"They killed my brother and nephew"
Earlier on that fateful day, Mesina and candidates of the town’s 24-strong villages for the
October 28 barangay polls attended a peace covenant in the nearby Catholic
Church before Calaunan shot them at the fruit stalls near the town plaza.
The incident, where the
police were seen frantically searching for gunmen at each stalls, was seen on
television as media men have just emerged from the church where the peace
covenant was held.
But the suspect insisted he
carried the dastardly act alone against the trio when he coincidentally saw
them buy fruits after they disembarked from Mesina’s van.
“The Mesinas have killed my brother and wounded my nephew. My
other relatives have migrated to Manila because we heard that the Mesinas
wanted to exterminate all of them,” the police source quoted Calaunan,
who was still dripping with water after he was "fished out" on the watery part
of the grassy area.
For a more detailed reading of this bloody family war in Pangasinan you can accessed http://wwwmortzcortigoza.blogspot.com/2013/10/bloody-family-war-in-pangasinan_25.html.
(Please comments at totomortz@yahoo.com)
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