Lass hurt in indiscriminate gun-firing; neighbor owns up to incident

By Jennifer P. Rendon

A 20-year-old woman was lucky to have survived a minor injury after she was hit with a bullet a few hours before the New Year.

Kate Nichole Cambronero was lying on her bed at their home in Zone 2, Barangay Rizal, La Paz, Iloilo City, around 9:10 p.m. Saturday when she felt something hit her.

Cambrenero later noticed blood on her left knee.

A relative then called for help to bring her to West Visayas State University Medical Center where she was treated and later sent home.

Major Jose Val Ladublan, Iloilo City Police Station 2 chief, said Cambronero was lucky to have only suffered a graze wound.

At around 1:15 a.m. of Jan. 1, 2023, police arrested the victim’s neighbor, Nila Magcanam, who was also one of the persons who took the victim to the hospital.

The 44-year-old Magcanam admitted to have fired a gun with the bullet landing on Cambronero’s one-storey house.

The suspect, who was sober when the incident happened, told police investigators that he fired a handgun while he was inside their house. He claimed that he did not mean to hurt anyone.

Ladublan said it didn’t take long for police to ascertain that the suspect was the victim’s next-door neighbor after they followed the bullet’s trajectory.

In a follow-up investigation, police recovered a fired cartridge of caliber .45 ammunition inside Magcanam’s bedroom.

But the firearm was not recovered. Magcanam will be charged for willful and indiscriminate discharge of firearm.

The victim, on the other hand, has told the police that they would not pursue a case against the suspect  Meanwhile, the Police Regional Office (PRO) 6 reported that Western Visayas logged one case of stray bullet incident at around 12:02 of December 25 at Mandurriao, Iloilo City The La Paz incident is the lone indiscriminate firing case recorded from Dec. 16, 2022 to Jan. 1, 2023.