PNP relieves entire Bayawan City police force

NEGROS ORIENTAL, Philippines – The Philippine National Police (PNP) relieved on Tuesday, March 7, the entire police force of Bayawan City in Negros Oriental, three days after the arrest there of three suspects in the March 4 attack that killed Negros Oriental Governor Roel Degamo and eight others.

“The whole force of the Bayawan City Police Station was relieved,” Police Lieutenant Colonel Gerard Ace Pelare, spokesperson of the Central Visayas-based Special Investigation Task Group, told reporters at a press briefing on Tuesday. “We have already sent the team who will compose the new members of Bayawan Police Station”.

The relieved cops have all been temporarily assigned to the Negros Oriental Provincial Police Office.

Three of the suspects – all former soldiers – were arrested in Sitio Punong, Barangay Kansumalig, Bayawan around 4:20 pm on Saturday, March 4. Degamo was attacked Saturday morning.

The three arrested in Bayawan have been sent to the PNP national headquarters in Camp Crame with a fourth suspect, identified by the PNP Central Visayas Office as Osmundo Rivero of Zamboanga City, a taxi driver.

A fifth still-unidentified suspect died in a shootout with state forces on Saturday evening, March 4, during pursuit operations.

Two of the four had been turned over to the Department of Justice’s Witness Protection Program (WPP). Perlade did not name them but said “they have shared substantial information on the crime committed.”

Political rivals

Degamo’s wife, Pamplona Mayor Janice Degamo, has said he had no other enemies except for his political rivals.

Bayawan falls under the third district of Negros Occidental. Representative Arnolfo ‘Arnie’ Teves broke his silence following the Degamo slay on Monday, March 6, complaining that he expected to be blamed for the killings.

Teves offered no words of sympathy for the victims of the attack, including residents of the province and barangay officials who were at the Degamo compound in Pamplona town to consult with him on community problems.

The congressman said he was out of the country for a “stem cell treatment.”

His brother, Pryde Henry, who was stripped in February 2023 of his short-lived governorship, posted on March 4 a “live” studio appearance with station of DYGB, on the FM band.

“Good morning. Welcome back. Nabalik najud ko gikag Iceland,” he said. (I have returned from Iceland.)

Pryde Henry posted his studio appearance at 9:13 am – around the time a force of around ten men wearing camouflage uniforms, bulletproof vests, and carrying long firearms, entered the Degamo compound in Pamplona town, opening fire on the governor and his visitors.

Sources, however, said the defeated gubernatorial candidate was no longer in town.

Reporters were not allowed into the Teves’ siblings homes in Bayawan and Dumaguete.

Scene before carnage

Degamo was holding a consultation with his constituents from different towns of the province when the killers came.

With him were Provincial Integrated Health Officer, Dr. Liland Estacion, Provincial Engineering OIC, Maelene Jimenez, and Marlo Quilnet.

Estacion and Jimenez, who were sitting with Degamo at the time the killers shot him, were among the 17 reported injured. They are now recovering. 

Eight others were killed – bodyguards, drivers, local officials, and individuals who went there to seek government assistance.

The remains of Degamo are now at their residence in Brgy. Junob, Dumaguete and will be transferred on Wednesday, March 8 at the Provincial Capitol for public viewing.

Concerned friends had told Degamo to tighten his security arrangements, especially after the Supreme Court upheld the Comelec decision naming him the winner in the May 2022 elections.

The governor, however, chafed at conditions that made it difficult for constituents to approach him, despite several sightings of “suspicious” individuals around their residences, his widow said.

Degamo regularly hosted “People’s Day” gatherings in Pamplona, allowing constituents across the province easy and direct access to him. His killers took advantage of such a gathering.

Highly-trained ex-solders

At least three of the suspects – Joric Labrador, 50; Joven Aber, 42; and Benjie Rodriguez, 45 — were former Army soldiers.

Labrador had served in the military intelligence unit and the mechanized infantry battalion of the 4th Infantry Division in Northern Mindanao, but was detailed as security escort for Cagayan de Oro 2nd District Representative Rufus Rodriguez before his termination in 2014 for drug cases.

Rodriguez was part of the 35th Infantry Battalion of the 11th Infantry Division (11ID). Aber was part of the Light Reaction Battalion, the Army’s top counterterrorist unit.

"This is an operational and tactical decision by the command to make sure that the remaining suspects will be arrested because as you know…most of the arrested suspects were arrested in Bayawan City," Pelare said. @rapplerdotcom

— John Sitchon (@TheJohnSitchon) March 7, 2023

– Rappler.com