CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – The lawyer who was gunned down by still unidentified men in a city in Bukidnon was on the drug watch list of Pres. Rodrigo Duterte, a police officer said Friday.
Killed was Winston Intong, 53, married, a resident of Barangay 10, Malaybalay City.
Intong was shot five times on his breast by two suspects on board a motorcycle as he was buying vegetables from a vendor at a mini-market near his home Thursday morning, said Lt. Col. Jerry Tambis, Malaybalay police chief.
“The suspects did not alight from the motorcycle. But they managed to put five bullets in the victim’s breast,” Tambis said, adding that Intong did not reach the hospital alive.
Capt. Jiselle Ester Lou Longakit, Bukidnon provincial police spokesperson, said that the Malaybalay police was able to confirm that Intong was on the president’s drug watch list. She did not elaborate.
The list is said to contain the names of persons involved in illegal drugs.
It can be recalled that in 2011, Intong and three others were arrested by agents of the Phil. Drug Enforcement Agency during a buy-bust operation inside his law office in Valencia City, Bukidnon, a news report said.
Longakit said Intong was eventually acquitted from the drug charges, although it was not immediately known when and how he was cleared from the case.
At present, investigators are looking at different angles for Intong’s shooting, but Tambis said the most probable motive could be personal.
“Before the incident, there was a threat to the victim’s life. He was said to have a personal grudge with someone,” he said.
Aside from Intong, a storekeeper identified as Roel Paligi was also wounded during the shooting.
Tambis said investigators are still determining the identity of the gunmen and the names of individuals the victims had quarrel with prior to his death.
Intong is the 55th lawyer killed under the Duterte regime. Last December 17, 2020, Atty. Baby Maria Concepcion Landero-Ole was shot dead inside her pick-up truck in Danao City.-Jigger Jerusalem
