Two DPWH employees survive gun attack

By Jennifer P. Rendon

 

Two employees of the Department of Public Works and Highway (DPWH) were unscathed despite being peppered with bullets in a broad daylight gun attack on January 18, 2021 in Sta. Barbara, Iloilo.

Police reports indicated that Ma. Eva Bedonia, 54, of Hedriana Street, Pavia, Iloilo, and Rogelio Serilo, 38, of Barangay Cabilauan, New Lucena, Iloilo, were on board a pickup truck of the DPWH-Iloilo 4th Division Engineering Office when two motorcycle-riding men sprayed bullets at them.

Bedonia, the Chief of DPWH division’s Quality Assurance Section, was seated on the front seat of the vehicle driven by Serilo.

Major Raymond Celoso, Sta. Barbara police chief, said the bullets failed to go through the vehicle’s door panel.

Serilo claimed they were about to pass through their office’s entrance gate at Barangay Bolong Oeste around 7:40AM Monday when they heard five gunfire volleys.

Celoso said the suspects tailed the victims and carried out the attack as they slowed down while entering the DPWH premises.

Police recovered from the crime scene five empty shells of caliber .45 ammunition.

Celoso said they are looking at personal grudges as possible motive for the incident.

A few years back, Bedonia claimed to have received threats over a land dispute.

Although police investigators are looking at every possible angle of the assassination attempt, Celoso said Bedonia could not relate the incident to her work at the DPWH.

It is also possible that the suspects are neophyte gunmen as they shot at the door and not the windshield.

“We couldn’t also say they don’t plan on really killing Bedonia or the driver,” Celoso said.

But police believed that the attack was not a case of mistaken identity.