Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim yesterday ordered the filing of murder and illegal possession of firearms cases against Jonathan Florendo, barangay chairman of Barangay 480, Zone-4, District IV and a resident of 1121 Carola St. of Sampaloc, Manila, for allegedly killing his fellow barangay chairman, Hilario Romano, of Barangay 473.
The shooting took place at around 9:30 p.m. last July 21 inside the Barangay Hall of Barangay 478 during a meeting with  Zone 47 barangay chairmen.
Initial investigation conducted by SPO2 Genesis Aliling of the MPD Station 4 showed  shortly before the incident the two had a heated argument regarding their zone’s forthcoming fiesta.
In the course of the argument, suspect Florendo, who was observed to be under the influence of liquor, kept on opposing every suggestion of victim Romano, resulting in a heated argument and reaching the point when Florendo drew his firearm.
Fortunately, however, he was quickly disarmed by his fellow chairman and advised to leave the barangay hall.
After a few minutes, Florendo returned armed with another handgun and shot the victim in the chest which resulted in the latter’s instant death. After the incident, the suspect escaped as caught on CCTV camera.
On orders of Supt. Rolando Balasabas, MPD Station 4 commander, his men conducted continuous follow-up operation and intelligence gathering for the immediate arrest of the suspect and at around 5 p.m. of July 23, the police finally tracked down Florendo at Room 501-B Lourdes Mansion, Alhambra Street, Ermita, Manila and arrested him.
Balasabas said the first gun which was disarmed from the suspect was a 9 mm but the second one which was a caliber. 357 revolver was the one allegedly used by the suspect in shooting the victim, but another gun which is .45 caliber pistol was the one recovered from his room. We are still checking if these guns had licenses because if they were unlicensed we will file   illegal possession of firearms charges against the suspect.
“The barangay chairmen are partners of police in maintaining peace and prder in their areas but in this case due to anger the chairman had committed this kind of crime,” Lim said.
“My advice to chairmen is this, stay calm, everything can be resolved in a dialog. Look at what happened, this chairman had committed a crime while the other chairman lies in a coffin. It is nice if he had killed a criminal but in this case it is his fellow chairman. This serves as a reminder everyone who will commit crime we will act on it, whoever it may be I don’t give a damn, even if he is a general we will arrest him),” Lim added.
Lim reminded the barangay chairmen that they should be the ones to set the good examples as law — abiding citizens being the primary enforcers of law in their areas of jurisdiction.
“They are the persons in authority pagkatapos sila ang gagawa ng krimen. Hindi maganda,” Lim stressed.
The mayor also said that Florendo’s son who supplied the gun to his father which was used in killing Romano will also be included in the charges.