To think he was just a few meters away from the condo where he lived.
“Based on an eyewitness account gathered by the police, Rolando Espina—a revenue officer who reported to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) main office in Quezon City—was seen having an argument with three men at a Total gas station in Barangay Malamig, Mandaluyong City around 5pm on Monday, August 18,” reports Vanessa B. Hidalgo in Philippine Daily Inquirer.
The report said that “one of the men then pushed Espina and shot him twice in the head, while another grabbed his backpack as he fell to the ground.”
Then, the report continued, “the one who took the backpack ran toward the southbound lane of Edsa, another boarded a southbound bus while the third was seen running toward the EDSA-Reliance overpass.”
Espina, 54, was brought by the Mandaluyong Rescue Unit to the Victor R. Potenciano Medical Center. However, he died at around 9pm.
Initially, robbery was said to be the motive of the murder. However, police say they’re “not discounting the possibility that the attack on Espina was related to his work in the BIR.”
The report added that “two .45-cal. bullet casings and a slug were recovered from the crime scene” and “police have begun reviewing footage from the closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera at the gas station to check if it could help establish the identity of the assailants.”
