CABANATUAN CITY – An electronics engineer-turned-dairy carabao raiser on a semi-commercial scale, who was also a church pastor, was shot and killed in front of his house in San Ricardo, Talavera, Nueva Ecija by an unidentified gunman early Tuesday morning.
Victim Jaime Ramos, 58, suffered multiple gunshot wounds in different parts of his body. He died in a hospital here hours after the attack. “One of two men riding tandem on a motorcycle shot him several times at close range,” Rodelio Lugod, a relative by affinity of the victim said in a phone interview.
“Their faces were hidden by masks and although some persons saw the incident, they could not recognize them,” he added. He said Ramos had no known enemy. “Mabait po siyang tao. Pastor po siya ng Iglesiyang Itinayo ni Jesucristo (He was a good man. He was a pastor of the Iglesiyang Itinayo in Jesucristo”, Lugod said.
Ramos, at the time of his death, was managing his dairy farm in the place where he was staying with his family. He owns more than 70 dairy carabaos which are mostly purebreds. He was formerly working in a Makati firm but decided to stake his future in dairy carabao raising.
At one time since 2004 when he started building his herd, he owned 100 dairy carabaos at least half of them lactating. He used to deliver milk every other day to his number of clients in San Miguel, Bulacan and in Nueva Ecija.
He was for several years chairman of the Nueva Ecija Federation of Dairy Carabao Cooperatives (NEFEDCCO) which counts 56 dairy cooperatives now. Officials of the Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) said Ramos was considered one of the most successful dairy carabao raisers in the country.
Scene of the crime operatives and police investigators were still gathering evidences at press time, including determination of the gun used and the number of shots that killed the victim. In Cuyapo town, a businessman, Arsenio Flores, 59, was shot and killed inside his restaurant about 12:30 p. m. Saturday.
A police report said three suspects pretended to be customers. When the victim was about to attend to them, one of the suspects pulled out a .45 gun and shot him several times. The suspects left after the shooting and escaped using their get-away motorcycle vehicle.
