BY GILBERT P. BAYORAN
The elementary batch mates of slain businessman Jerry Gasendo strongly condemned his killing and called on authorities for the speedy resolution of his death on November 2 in Bacolod City.
Gasendo, 53, was gunned down by a motorcycle riding gunman along the national highway at Brgy. Tangub in Bacolod City.
“We demand that his death will not be another statistic in the countless unsolved assassination we’ve had in Bacolod, which just lends impunity to these murderers to go on a rampage and commit extrajudicial killings,” the Batch 81 of ETCS said in a statement.
Initial police investigation showed that the victim was driving his Honda Genio scooter northbound on the highway when he was shot by a motorcycle-riding gunman on board another motorcycle that was tailing him, driven by a companion.
Gasendo, also an artist, succumbed to gunshot wounds in the head.
“We equally call on our city officials to join this appeal and send a message to the public that we will not take extrajudicial killings lightly and that these incidents are not mere isolated cases but an affront to our sensibilities as a society, as a humanity,” the batch mates of Gasendo further said in a statement.
The group said “Jerry was a businessman and a father who did everything he could to raise his children singlehandedly after his wife passed away more than a decade ago. He will always be remembered as a good friend, an artist and a great dad to his children.”
“We pray for strength for his family members to weather this tragedy and we also request the public to respect the grief that they are going through. It does not matter whether the man led a life as meek as a sheep or perhaps just lived off on a trade that teeters on utmost risk and danger. None of these justify killing,” they pointed out.
We call on a speedy resolution to this murder and to haul in the perpetrators so that justice will be served, they added.*
