The Philippine National Police (PNP) said on Monday that it already has under its custody five suspects who may be involved in the ambush-slay of four policemen in Negros Oriental, which has seen a rash of killings over the past weeks.
PNP Spokesman chief Supt. Bernard Banac bared the arrest of two suspects in Negros Oriental and three more in Cebu City as he declared that the peace and order, and even the whole situation in Negros Oriental, had started to return to normal.
“Our police forces are continuing to provide security there,” he said, referring to the province, which for the past weeks, has logged more than 20 killings, which the New People’s Army (NPA) and the military blamed to each side.
Banac said the two suspects, who were arrested over the weekend, were allegedly involved in the killing of four policemen in Ayungon, Negros Oriental, last month, while the participation of the three suspects nabbed in Cebu was still being investigated.
The five were separate from the 11 suspects tagged by the police as responsible in the killing of the policemen, a case that was followed by spate of killings, wherein two of the victims were a school principal and a human-rights lawyer.
“We will make sure that all perpetrators of the killings will be made to answer before the court, and we are giving our assurance that the peace and order in Negros Oriental is under control. Trade, tourism and business should go on there,” Banac said.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) reported that the head of its chapter in Bacolod was suspiciously tailed by a motorcycle rider on Sunday afternoon while returning from covering the killings in Negros Oriental.
Marchel Espina, also the Bacolod correspondent for Rappler, was returning from Canlaon City when the driver of her rental car alerted her to the rider, who was of medium build and wore a bonnet concealing his face, a black jacket and pants, and with a backpack.
Espina said the rider trailed them for almost 18 kilometers, from Biak Na Bato to Taburda, in La Castellana town, Negros Oriental.
Espina quoted her driver as saying he blocked an attempt by the rider to overtake their vehicle and drove as fast as he could until they finally outmaneuvered the rider.
The NUJP also claimed that a former station manager of a radio station that focused on reporting indigenous peoples’ (IP) issues was reportedly harassed by elements of the 1st Special Forces Battalion based in Manolo Fortich, Bukidnon.
JB Deveza of the NUJP Western Mindanao Safety Office said the soldiers went to the house of Kristin Lim at around 8:30 p.m. on Saturday to “invite” her to go with them for questioning, but she refused “as the soldiers did not present a clear and valid reason for her to do so.”
Lim claimed the soldiers left, but came back at about 8 a.m. on Sunday. The soldiers only left past noon after barangay officials intervened and proposed the holding of a dialogue between Lim and the soldiers at the village hall.
Deveza said Lim used to be the station manager of Radyo Lumad, a project run by the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines-Northern Mindanao Region (RMP-NMR). The radio station was under the Healing the Hurt Project co-funded by the European Union and the World Association for Christian Communication mainly to communicate IP rights and issues.
In Quezon province, the military claimed it has prevented another “extortion” activity by the NPA following an encounter with its members in Barangay Santa Rosa, Calauag, at around 9:45 p.m. on Sunday.
The soldiers recovered a poncho, water bottles, a lunch box, utility rope, t-shirts and other paraphernalia that were left by the rebels.
Brig. Gen. Arnulfo Marcelo Burgos Jr., commander of the 2nd Infantry Division, said the encounter, which took place following tips from residents, showed the communities have already gravitated away from the NPA.
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