ROXAS City – Provincial Board member Roberto Ignacio of Capiz apologized for badmouthing antidrug police asking his wife to sign an inventory of items recovered during an operation in Barangay Tanza.
Ignacio said he was sorry for uttering unsavory remarks but insisted that they would not sign as “witnesses” to an operation they knew nothing about.
He admitted, too, that he was inebriated when the police knocked on their door past 10 p.m. last Wednesday to look for his wife Linda, barangay captain of Tanza.
The Ignacio couple refused to sign the inventory of items seized from drug suspect Reynaldo Aringo, whom the police arrested during a buy-bust operation at a cockpit.
Operatives of the Capiz Police Provincial Office’s Provincial Drug Enforcement Unit recovered from Aringo three sachets of suspected shabu and the P1,000 “marked money.”
Officers woke the Ignacio couple up at around 10:30 p.m. Senior Inspector Hilbert Gervero, PDEU chief, then presented to them the inventory and asked them to sign as “witnesses.”
“We’re already sleeping! Why would you wake us up? We were not there when you caught the suspect. We don’t know where you got those items,” Ignacio was heard saying in a video taken at the time and uploaded on Facebook.
The Provincial Board member was also heard badmouthing the police. Ignacio argued that the PDEU did not coordinate with his wife prior to the operation.
Gervero said they were just acknowledging the authority of Linda Ignacio as the village chief. He pointed out that barangay officials have no role in the actual operation.
“I did not take issue anymore. He (Ignacio) is older and he was drunk at the time,” Gervero told Panay News. In the absence of village councilpersons, the PDEU asked the Sangguniang Kabataan chairperson to sign instead.
Some Facebook users called Ignacio a “drug protector” for vehemently refusing to sign the inventory.
“Please forgive us. It was late. I could barely remember what I said that night,” Ignacio said in a radio interview. “We will cooperate with the police in any other way but we will not sign the inventory.”
Charges for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 have been filed against Aringo, a 56-year-old resident of Barangay Punta Tabuc, before the City Prosecutor’s Office./PN
