Motorcycle-riding criminals

The deaths of three people in separate attacks by gunmen on motorcycles on Sunday show a "breakdown in law and order," Human Rights Watch says in a dispatch.

Citing media reports, HRW says Salvador Romano, 42, was shot in front of a church in Negros Oriental on Sunday. On the same day, Wenefredo Olofernes, 52, a provincial legislator for the Dinagat Islands, was also shot dead while riding his motorcucle home in Surigao City. Gunmen also shot and killed businessman Arnel Agustin and wounded his wife, HRW says. 

"The three killings are unrelated, but share the modus operandi of killers commonly referred to in the Philippines as “riding in tandem”: two people riding a motorbike, wearing ski masks or balaclavas, and using a .45 caliber pistol (at least in the shootings of Romano and Agustin). According to the police, about four people are killed this way in the Philippines every day," HRW says.

"These three cases highlight the breakdown in law and order in the Philippines. Guns for hire – whether paid hitmen or local government-linked 'death squads' – operate knowing that the risk of arrest, let alone successful prosecution, is miniscule. It’s no surprise that many of the hired guns are police officers. And as killings in the government’s “war on drugs” have expanded and come under increased global scrutiny, the police have outsourced many 'drug war' killings," the rights group also says.

Two gunmen on motorcycles shot and killed three people in Barangay Mactan in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu, The Freeman reports.

Police say victims were armed and still unidentified.

BREAKING: Three were shot in Lapu-Lapu City tonight. Details to follow | via Decemay Padilla pic.twitter.com/dDz6xG2jV1

— The Freeman (@TheFreemanNews) March 22, 2018