Hit man kills prominent hotelier in P’gasinan

CALASIAO – Motorcycle riders in tandem struck again in Pangasinan and killed a prominent hotelier, owner of a cockpit arena, and electronic casino here.

DAMAGED S.U.V. The bullets peppered sport utility vehicle (SUV) white Toyota
 Fortuner of Pangasinan prominent hotelier Adolfo “Doping” S. Fernandez who
 owned the Dagupan Village Inn in Dagupan City and whose family
 owned the Regency Hotel in Calasiao. 

Adolfo “Doping” S. Fernandez, 60, according to police report, was leaving out at 3:20 Pm last Sunday his Calasiao Cockpit Arena after the customary 20 minutes break for aficionados when a hit man back riding on a Honda XRM sneaked from somewhere inside the  car parking space of the arena and started pumping his .45 caliber hand gun on the victim's white sport utility vehicle (SUV) Toyota Fortuner with plate no. ZFG-172.

“The victim still managed to continue driving until reaching the highway and went out of the vehicle seeking assistance to bystanders but he was followed by the suspect and shot him again,” this town chief of police chief’s Supt. Rizaldy A. Dalope said on the police report.

In the ocular inspection of the vehicle by this newspaper at the police station here, the gunman fired seven bullets at the left side of the heavily tinted SUV hitting on the left side passenger’s door, left side door, left side mirror, and left front tire.

Fernandez was hit at his left forearm and left thigh as bullets penetrated the left front mirror and  left front door's handle  bar of the vehicle.

Doping Fernandez

“Victim sustained gunshot wounds on the body and head that later expired around 5:25 Pm of same date at Villaflor Hospital, Dagupan City,” report continued.

As his vehicle was being peppered with bullets, a police official here said Fernandez slammed it to a public utility jeep that damaged the right bumper of the SUV.

After hitting the jeep the hotelier jumped from the SUV and ran towards the makeshift restaurants at the side of the highway asking for help. When the gunman, the source said, caught him up Fernandez faced him by raising his hands as a sign of submission.

“Gunman fired a single shot on his left temple that knocked him down,” source said.

The source said that Fernandez, whose family owned the Regency Hotel here and the Dagupan Village Inn, used to bring his handgun but in the last few weeks he did not bring it and went to his daily activities without even bringing his usual body guards.

“If he got a gun the killer or his driver would surely be dead as they could not kill him inside the SUV,” source opined.

As the riders in tandem escape using the highway near Jollibee and was bound to Sta. Barbara town, they and the motorbike fell on the ground in front of Tesoro Resort.

As the chaser on a motorcycle sympathetic to Fernandez would be catching them, the gun man poked his .45 hand gun at the chaser that cowed him.

“The hit man and his companion commandeered a motorcycle by toting his gun to the rider after they found their getaway Honda XRM conked out”

When they near the boundary of this town and Sta. Barbara, the source said, they left the robbed motorcycle and poked again their gun at a passing motorized tricycle and hopped into it and ordered the driver to go back to this town by taking off their jackets.

One of the angles being looked by investigator was Fernandez was killed because of business differences. Source said Fernandez not only lent monies to  bettors in the Arena but stood as maintainer of the Meridiane Jai-Alai numbers games, the successor of the 1 to 37 game of chance jueteng and had just built a swanky three stories state of the art edifice in Barangay Bued that would host a call center and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation's sanctioned electronic casino.