INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines -- Marnel "Mac" Baracael, the Far Eastern University basketball player who was shot Thursday night, is “stable” but remains confined to an intensive care unit, team officials said Friday afternoon.

The 6-foot-3 Baracael was shot by a still unknown assailant past 8:30 p.m. Thursday at R. Papa corner Nicanor Reyes streets in Manila.

"He's stable but in bad shape," said Anton Montinola, FEU's representative to the UAAP board. "We have no information yet [regarding the motive]. We cannot speculate."

Police investigators, also on Friday, admitted they, too, remained clueless about why the player was shot.

But Superintendent Ricardo Layug said investigators already have the statements of Baracael and witnesses to the crime and that ballistics tests will be conducted on the shells and slugs recovered by police.

FEU athletic director Mark Molina added: "He is stable and conscious and doctors are putting him through tests."

Initial reports from the Manila Police District Station 4 said Baracael was walking to the FEU gym with teammates Ron Cabagnot and Robert Kave when the suspect shot the 23-year-old cager twice with a 45-caliber pistol.

The suspect "casually walked away" towards España, the police report said.

Baracael suffered a lone gunshot wound on the left side of his back, the bullet exiting at the lower portion of his nipple.

But Superintendent Ricardo Layug said in a phone interview that, contrary to reports, Baracael had not been shot at close range.

Noting that the gunman was only around 5-foot-2, Layug said "medyo imposible na malapit ang gunman [it would have been impossible that the gunman was near" the much taller Baracael.

The cager’s two teammates rushed him to the Mary Chiles Hospital in Sampaloc.

Later that evening, he was transferred to the Capitol Medical Center, where security remains tight.