Police Brigadier General Debold Sinas, director of the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas. CDN Digital file photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The police will be filing charges on the four armed men believed to be behind the alleged harassment incidents in hinterland barangays of San Fernando town.
Arrested Romeo Solis Jr., 39; Frisco Tapales, 29; Manuel Alidon, 54; and Anastacio Solis, 50; will be charged with illegal possession of firearms and violation of the election gun ban.
Police Brigadier General Debold Sinas, Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7) director, said in a press briefing on Friday, May 10, that they were still looking into the background of these suspects.
Earlier reports claimed that the arrested men were allegedly believed to be “goons” of Ruben Feliciano, who is running for town mayor in the election.
Feliciano, in a separate press briefing on the same day, admitted that the four arrested men were his supporters but he vehemently denied that they were his goons.
He instead said that those arrested were allegedly not the men who fired a shot during the incident on Friday.
He, however, claimed that the men, who allegedly were involved in the incident, were allegedly the “goons” of another candidate running for a government post.
Read more: San Fernando violence: Feliciano denies keeping goons
Sinas, for his part, said that it had not been established that Feliciano was involved in the incident.
At past 2 p.m. on Friday, an initial report from authorities said that they were responding to a strafing incident in Barangay Bugho which was allegedly reported by village chief, Florendo Basalo.
Police later confirmed that a firefight had allegedly erupted between an Army squad and a group of armed civilians.
Read more: San Fernando cops responding to report of armed encounter in Bugho
But during the May 10 press briefing, Sinas clarified that no shootout happened.
He said that there was only one shot and it was a “warning shot” from the armed civilians as the Army soldiers approached the area.
Barangay Captain Basalo and Barangay Councilor Teodoro Resogento allegedly confirmed this to Sinas.
“Yung nakita nila (the armed civillians) ang Army, nanagan. Ang nadungog sa Army is ang ‘warning shot’, which was confirmed by the barangay captain and the councillor,” said Sinas.
(The armed civilians started running when they saw the army. What the army heard was a ‘warning shot.’)
Sinas also claimed that amid the commotion when Army soldiers pursued the armed men, a car which was parked near the area was found to have a firearm inside.
The car was allegedly owned by a candidate running for a post in the town.
But Sinas said that they still could not confirm who the owner of the vehicle was as they were still investigating the whole incident.
The four arrested men were detained at the San Fernando Police Station detention cell pending the filing of charges./dbs