Duterte gives P20-M share of bounty in Batocabe slaying

President Rodrigo Duterte has given his share of the P50-million reward money for information on the killing of Ako Bicol Rep. Rodel Batocabe last month in Daraga, Albay province.

“By the mercy of God, I was the only one who delivered the P20 million. Congress has not yet given its share,” the President said in Lucena City where he attended the annual assembly of the Provincial Union of Leaders against Illegalities.

The President joked that Congress might still be printing money to put up its P30-million share.

He had increased the reward after learning that Batocabe’s colleagues and friends in the House of Representatives had put up a P30-million bounty.

The President told a congressman in the audience to remind his colleagues to pay up because they had made a promise.

“I don’t know who made the commitment actually,” he said, adding it was through Philippine National Police Director General Oscar Albayalde that he learned Congress had not paid its share.

He said he told Albayalde that he would “look for an opportunity to remind them so that policemen would have more courage in solving crimes.”

“It was solved in record time,” the President said of the murder of Batocabe and his aide three days before Christmas Day last year.

Albayalde had tagged Daraga Mayor Carlwyn Baldo as the mastermind in the killing of Batocabe, who had planned to run against the mayor in the May elections.