135 ‘POLL HOTSPOTS’ IN WV

    Mambusao village candidate survives strafing

    ILOILO City – A candidate for barangay captain in the village of Bato Bato in Mambusao, Capiz and his family survived the strafing of their house recently.

    The incident prompted the Police Regional Office 6 (PRO-6) to raise the number of “election hotspots” in Western Visayas to 135 on Saturday, two days before election day.

    The synchronized 2018 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections will be held Monday.

    Of the hotspots, 132 were declared as such “based on historical data from the 2010 to 2016 elections,” the PRO-6 said.

    “The recent three,” the regional police said, stemmed from two incidents in Capiz province and one in Barangay Quezon, Arevalo district.

    One of the two incidents in Capiz was the attack on the 46-year-old village councilman Arnel Labao, who is running for barangay captain of Bato Bato, Mambusao town.

    Still unidentified armed persons fired at his house at around 10:54 p.m. last Thursday.

    Labao and his family were about to sleep when attacked, said Senior Superintendent Samuel Nacion, Capiz police director. They were unhurt.

    Bullets hit the concrete wall of the house. Police did not find empty shells but recovered an unexploded grenade wrapped in adhesive tape outside the residence.

    “We have not yet identified the suspects. We are still investigating,” said Nacion. “The suspects may have used a .38 revolver because we have not recovered any empty shell.”

    Based on the failure of the bullets to hit the windows and the tape-wrapped grenade, Nacion believes the attackers may have had no intention to harm Labao or his family.

    “We have to dig deeper,” he said. “It was clear that the suspects had no plan to kill their target. The grenade (found outside the house) was wrapped in tape.”

    Another grenade exploded but it was around 20 meters away from Labao’s house, Nacion said.

    Labao, a nephew of Mambusao Mayor Leodegario Labao Jr., is running for barangay captain against his second cousin.

    Nacion said they placed Barangay Bato Bato, Mambusao among election watch list areas in Capiz because of the incident.

    “I have instructed the Mambusao police chief to intensify police presence in the area,” he said.

    Another recent addition to the election hotspots is Barangay Lawaan, Roxas City, where the incumbent village chief, Elvis Asis, was shot to death while on board a motorcycle on April 27.

    Investigators were still trying to identify Asis’ killers as of this writing. Local officials raised bounties of up to P200,000 for any information that could lead to the capture of the suspects.

    In Barangay Quezon, Arevalo, Barangay Captain Visamin Cañal – a first-termer seeking re-election on Monday – believes four men believed to be members of a gun-for-hire group are targeting him.

    The four men – John Rey Tiezo, Ryan Tiezo, Arnulfo Aliparo, and Reagan Gepulango, all residents of Tigbauan, Iloilo – were charged with murder.

    They are No. 3 in the list of wanted persons of the Tigbauan police station.

    Last Monday evening the men fired at the police officers out to serve them arrest warrants in Barangay Yulo Drive, Arevalo and fled.

    At around 4 p.m. that day police officers spotted them at Villa Carolina Subdivision a few meters away from the house of Cañal.

    “The Mambusao incident was declared a suspected election-related incident subject to validation of the Regional Validation Committee headed by the Regional Investigation and Detective Management Division,” PRO-6 spokeswoman Superintendent Joem Malong said in a press release.

    “To prevent further incidents in the area, the Capiz provincial office beefed up their personnel and intensified their operations focusing on the implementation of the gun ban,” Malong added./PN

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