BY FELIPE CELINO
ROXAS City — Those who ransacked the house of former Dumarao vice mayor Quiruben Pamplona and took with them high-powered firearms will surely be slapped with criminal cases, the police said.
“There is an ongoing effort to identify the culprits. Once [we identify them], we will file charges against them,” Senior Supt. Domingo Cabillan, Capiz police director, stressed.
Pamplona may also be at risk of facing charges for possessing firearms with unrenewed licenses.
He actually failed to renew his firearms’ licenses, but a notice has already been sent to him, Cabillan said. The police chief said the former official had been “negligent.”
Cabillan also expressed doubts on the accounts of Pamplona.
“We take note of his (Pamplona) report that his house was robbed and his firearms were taken away. But he is inconsistent in his statements,” he said.
Three unidentified people raided the house of Pamplona in Brgy. Siribawan, Dumarao, some 23 kilometers from Brgy. Poblacion, and took with them several high-powered firearms and ammunitions.
During the incident in the evening of October 25, Pamplona was in his other house in Brgy. Poblacion.
When the police made an inspection after the incident, the former vice mayor told them that four firearms were stolen, Cabillan said.
But three days later, Pamplona said eleven firearms were taken away, he said.
Cabillan said they are currently investigating the veracity of Pamplona’s statements.
Police suspected that the robbers were New People’s Army (NPA) members, but the rebel group denied the accusation.
Over dyOW Bombo Radyo on November 1, Rojo Silangan, spokesperson of NPA’s Eastern Front Committee under Nonito Aguirre Command, said none of their members barged in the house of Pamplona.
Silangan instead accused Department of Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas of perpetrating the raid to “defeat his political opponents.”
Pamplona is running for vice mayor of Dumarao in the mid-term elections next year under the National Unity Party of former 2nd District representative Fredenil Castro.
The newly deployed Philippine National Police – Special Action Force (PNP-SAF) or the Philippine Army could have also been behind the robbery, Silangan said.
But that was impossible, according to Cabillan. All actions of the PNP-SAF were in coordination with the local police, he stressed.
Maj. Enrico Ileto, Philippine Army’s 3rd Infantry Division spokesperson, strongly denied Silangan’s accusations. He challenged the rebel to prove his claims.
But Ileto suspected that the one who spoke over the radio was not a rebel spokesperson but a political propagandist out to destroy the military and the police.
Pamplona refused to comment on Cabillan’s statements and the alleged link of the authorities to the robbery.
“Let’s wait for the (results of the) investigation of the police” was all he said.
A close ally of Roxas shrugged off the rebel’s accusation, saying that what happened may have been aimed at hiding the firearms with unrenewed licenses.
