SOUTHERN BEAT: TEXT INFO COULD STIR UP A CITY
ILOILO CITY, March 31, 2005 (STAR) THE SOUTHERN BEAT By Rolly Espina - Even Bacolod folk found themselves inundated with reports about terrorists having entered Iloilo City during the Holy Week. These scary reports circulated via text messages in cellphones.Even the Iloilo City police were placed on red alert. The information was clear enough: two alleged suicide bombers were said to be moving around in two vehicles.
Iloilo police chief Norlito Bautista acknowledged receipt of the text messages — actually three — which also provided a description of the vehicles carrying the alleged terrorists plus their license plates.
Bautista admitted that the information stated that the terrorists were out to stage terror attacks during the Holy Week. But it did not specify to which group they belong.
Neither were their details on how the terrorists managed to enter Iloilo City. But the text messages were specific — the first vehicle used by one of the terrorists was a gray Mitsubishi L-300 van with plate number 518; the other was reportedly a white Isuzu Crosswind with license plate DLY 433.
Bautista admitted that all police units in the city were alerted to be on the lookout for the alleged terrorists. Even undercover policemen were deployed in vital installations, including Catholic churches, in the city.
Despite all the preparations and the surveillance, nothing really happened. But as Bautista told local mediamen later, "We cannot afford to compromise the security of the public."
Barangay captain the ‘target’
Later on Monday, Association of Barangay Captains president Marietta Orleans said she was the victim of the false text messages about the terrorists and their vehicles which circulated in Iloilo City and nearby Bacolod.
Orleans said she was shocked when a former colleague, councilman Joshua Alim, informed her that her car was reportedly carrying a suicide bomber. Alim reportedly received the text message and suddenly remembered that it fitted the description of Orleans’ Crosswind.
Fortunately, Orleans, in a radio interview, said she stayed home during the Holy Week. She also vehemently denied that her car was used by other people, much less suicide bombers.
She expressed suspicion that she was targeted by malicious minds. But she refused to identify the persons she suspected of being behind the dirty trick.
The third message was the one that sort of tipped off people that something wrong was going on. It ended with the "intel report from the police added that it was verified with PNP 117."
That was the clincher that panicked some people in the city, although Bautista later acknowledged that the reports about the two alleged suicide bombers having entered the city were not true.
The point, however, is that somebody or a group must have thought up that canard that could have led to the possible gunning down of Orleans by trigger-happy lawmen.
It is time that Iloilo authorities and the police trace the source of all those messages. They were deadly, and created a major panic among Iloilo residents and their relatives in nearby Bacolod.
Puzzling death of Capiz ‘pushers’
Have vigilantes started acting right in Capiz?
This was a question raised with the gunning down of two "big-time" drug pushers last Good Friday in Roxas City.
The two victims were Mario Bargantinos, 53, of Barangay Cogon, Panay town, Capiz, and 22-year-old Paul Teodosio of Barangay San Jose, Roxas City.
In the case of Bargantinos, two men on board a motorcycle barged into his house at about midnight of Good Friday, woke up the sleeping man, and without any provocation, peppered him with bullets from an M-16 rifle.
Panay police chief Oscar Silva said investigators recovered 10 empty shells of an M-16 rifle near Bargantinos’s body and another 19 shells at the gate of the residence.
Surely two hours later, two men, also on board a motorcycle, barged into Teodosio’s house. Panay is the town adjacent to Roxas City. San Jose, Teodosio’s place, is only eight kilometers away from Bargantinos’ residence.
The two gunmen reportedly wore ski masks. One of them wore a brown jacket, fatigue uniform and combat boots.
One of the duo called for Paul’s father, but when told that he was not around, he fired at Paul who died upon arrival at a hospital in Roxas City.
Last year, Superintendent Rene Aspera, OIC of the Capiz provincial police, said two other suspected drug pushers were also gunned down by still unidentified armed men.
Aspera admitted that the police were looking into the vigilante angle in the latest gunslaying but also posited the possibility that the two were victims of gang rivalry in the illegal drug trade.
Last year, the two victims were Edwin Aporta of Barangay Cagay and Mystico Aparacoso of Punta Tambao, both of Roxas City.
In the case of Bargantinos, police said he was facing a string of illegal drug cases in various courts in Roxas City. He also managed to post bail for his provisional release in his latest apprehension.
Paul and his father, Yolly, were reportedly arrested by a combined team of the Roxas PNP and the provincial task force against illegal drugs only last month. Regional Trial Court Judge Juliana Azarraga of Branch 15 of the Roxas RTC granted bail to the Teodosios due to a technicality although the police seized 61 grams of shabu from them.
Teodosio, according to Chief Inspector Ricardo Alba, is reportedly on the PNP’s order of battle and tagged as a member of the 14K drug syndicate operating in Pasay City before.
In short, the police must be able to pinpoint those responsible for these unsolved killings in Capiz. That may be the harbinger of things to come with Cebu City no less plagued with a series of unsolved vigilante killings, plus those reputedly in Davao City. The toll is rising. And something must be done to curb further "liquidations."
Reported by: Sol Jose Vanzi
© Copyright, 2005
by PHILIPPINE HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE
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