Defense Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr.
DUMAGUETE CITY, Negros Oriental — Stop the bloodshed and impunity.
Pres. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has issued a “verbal call out order” to the police and the military to stop the impunity and lawless actions on Negros Island.
This was confirmed on Saturday by Defense Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr, officer-in-charge of the Department of National Defense.
And one of the immediate measures that authorities implemented towards this goal is the putting up of checkpoints by the police and the military.
“Verbal order to call out the armed forces to perform task, to support actively the law enforcement dito sa Negros…May hierarchy tayo sa calibrated response, una yung verbal call out order, second is the state of emergency to lawless violence, pangatlo is suspension of habeas corpus, pang apat ay ang martial law. Tayo ay nasa pinaka baba…ang verbal call out,” Galvez said.
Galvez added that the president ordered him to do everything to serve justice for the assassination of Negros Oriental Governor Roel Degamo and the killing of eight others, and other atrocities in the province.
Also included in the president’s order is to track down and destroy private armed groups. The President also directed them to deploy a massive number of security, especially in areas where the suspects of the Degamo slay fled as well as known election hotspots.
Further, General Andres Centino, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines said that they have organized two brigades and six battalions to help the police in securing the island.
Centino said that Negros has two brigades that are based in Tanjay and in Negros Occidental. These are primarily tasked to monitor the presence of insurgents in their respective areas.
However, following the Pamplona massacre, Centino said that they will divide and deploy a certain number of personnel to different areas to help arrest the at-large culprits and implement checkpoints.
“We are planning kung saan talaga natin ilalagay sila because we are going after the suspects, they are still on the run. We deploy the forces kung saan sila most likely mag iikot or tatakbo,” Centino said.
However, the official begged off from naming these areas for security purposes.
Galvez added that the law enforcers have different cells intended for operations, intelligence, investigation, legal, and information and communications.
These efforts, he said, were not only made to address the recent massacre in Pamplona but also the previous crimes on the island.
“Ang pinaka importante is gusto natin i employ ang might of the government to portray to the people that we are here and very serious that this will be the time of reckoning. We will give justice to the death of many people including the governor na kailangan na talaga wakasan,” Galvez added. /rcg
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