CAMSUR Crime Incidences Soar

NAGA CITY (19 June) - AN INCREASE in the crime incidents in Camarines Sur province after the May elections was noted in this province, prompting PNP Provincial director Sr. Supt. Jonathan Viernes Ablang to order the municipal police stations (MPS) in the first and fifth districts of the province to create a task force that will track-down the criminal groups in the said localities.

Camarines Sur Provincial Police Office Spokesman, SPO4 Romulo Pabiano, revealed that recently a robbery-holdup gang has been active in the surrounding localities of Calabanga (3^rd District); similarly, armed robbery gangs were operating in the towns of Lupi and San Fernando in the First district of the province.

Crimes against persons and property reportedly increased by 20% this month, although crime solution in most of the cases remained at 65% efficiency, Pabiano said.

Pabiano remarked that "even criminals could have been diverted by the election,  to focus on other jobs."

This week, Ablang had ordered the police chief in San Fernando town to get leads on the brutal murders of Antonio Atol Habla, 73, and his son Noel Basco Habla 35, both grocery owners in the remote locality of Pinamasagan, San Fernando, Camarines Sur.

Reportedly, the younger Habla was shot while standing in front of their store, while his father was forced to lie down on the ground and was shot twice on the head by the suspects.

Four suspects armed with hand-guns and rifles were reportedly seen by a 10 year-old boy who provided some description of the suspects.

The armed group carted away a licensed SAM-GI Cal. 45 pistol from the store owner, jewelleries and cell phones worth P 9,000, and cash amounting to P 10,000 pesos; meanwhile, investigators also recovered empty shells of Cal. 45 and those from an armalite rifle at the crime scene.

Last June 13, the police also found the bullet-peppered body of Richard Bon Awa, 27, near the lake shore of Barangay Payak in Bato, Camarines Sur, allegedly shot by four men using cal. 45 pistols.

Reportedly, the local police remain without any leads on the killing of Awa.

In Lupi, Camarines Sur, holdup gang-member Gary Marandilla Pepaño, 30, a welder and resident of Odicon, Pasacao, has been charged before the RTC in Libmanan town, after he was nabbed by Lupi Police Sr. Insp. Elizor Bordonada Dy-Cok and a joint police-army unit in Barangay Calagbangan, Sipocot town.

During Pepaño's arrest, he was found with a Cal. 45 pistol, two magazines with nine rounds of ammunition, a gun-holster, a "Balisong" knife, and cash amounting to P 11,140.00.

Pepaño was identified by witnesses as among the members of a robbery-holdup gang who robbed the "Luis and Enro Store," the "Bob and Judy's Store" both in Sooc, Lupi town.

Moreover, he was identified as part of the group who robbed agents of the Prince Seller Marketing firm more than P 150,000 in cash and undetermined worth of valuables early this June.

During the robbery-hold-up, the gang members reportedly also shot the legs of two bystanders who were at the vicinity of the crime.

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