ILOILO City – The Police Regional Office 6 (PRO-6) is not allowing policemen to serve as personal escorts of local government officials.
“What we can do is provide police presence in the vicinity of their residences and scheduled of activities in the barangays when they request for it,” said Chief Superintendent John Bulalacao, regional police director.
The assassination last week of two Luzon mayors that President Rodrigo Duterte linked to illegal drugs unnerved Iloilo mayors similarly accused.
According to Mariano Malones of Maasin and Sigfredo Betita of Carles, the successive killings on July 1 and 3 were upsetting. Both, however, won’t seek security assistance from the police or military.
Bulalacao confirmed the PRO-6 had not received any request for security from Malones, Betita and Mayor Alex Centena of Calinog, Iloilo. The three were among the several local government officials across the country that Duterte named and shamed in August 2016.
Bulalacao said before he assumed as PRO-6 director, Duterte instructed him to recall all policemen serving as security aide of politicians, if there were any.
But local government officials were free to tap the services of security agencies, he stressed.
On July 2, Mayor Antonio Halili of Tanauan City, Batangas was shot while attending his local government’s flag-raising ceremony outside the city hall.
Mayor Ferdinand Bote of General Tinio, Nueva Ecija, on the other hand, was attacked on July 3 while on his way out of the National Irrigation Administration office in Cabanatuan City.
“Even if you are fully guarded if it’s your time to die, you’ll die,” Malones told Panay News.
He, Betita and Centena vehemently denied having links to illegal drugs either as pusher, user or protector.
“Wala ako sala sa gobyerno kag sa pumuluyo ko. I honestly serve the people of Maasin. I have no illegal activities, especially illegal drugs,” said Malones.
Malones and Betita believed the killings were not related to illegal drugs but to politics.
“This makes the situation more worrisome. Quarters with sinister agenda, including politicians, may use the illegal drug issue as cover to advance their own interests,” said Betita./PN
