ILOILO CITY, Philippines — Two confessed drug users, who earlier surrendered to the police, were killed by still unidentified gunmen in a span of an hour on Tuesday.

Mark Mallon was sitting on a roadside in Barangay San Jose, Molo District when he was shot in the head by unidentified gunmen past 6 a.m., said Senior Insp. Mark Cordero, Molo police chief.

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An hour later, fish vendor Leonel Capanang, 26, was repeatedly shot at Imperial Subdivision in Barangay North Fundidor also in Molo District.

South San Jose chair Ising Villanueva said Mallon had surrendered to the police and was supposed to attend the rehabilitation program at the Police Regional Office in Western Visayas (PRO-6).

Villanueva said someone asked for Mallon’s whereabouts in the village on Monday.

Cordero said Capanang had also surrendered to police and confessed to being a drug user.

But Capanang could been killed over unpaid debt, the police chief said.

The victim told policemen who brought him to the Medical City hospital that the shooting could be due to money that he owed to a chicken buyer. He died while undergoing treatment.

Cordero said they already identified suspects in the killing of Capanang but declined to disclose their identities pending an investigation.

“We will still investigate the drug angle but the stronger lead is based on what (Capanang) revealed,” he told the INQUIRER. CBB/rga

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