Cebu City mayoral candidate denies hand in ambush of cop, wife

Cebu City mayoral candidate Margot Osmeña addresses queries from reporters in a hotel on Wednesday, May 4. (DALE ISRAEL/INQUIRER VISAYAS)

CEBU CITY — Cebu City mayoral candidate Margot Osmeña on Wednesday, May 4, shrugged off insinuations that her camp may have a hand in the recent ambush of a policeman and the latter’s wife.

“You know they suspect that BOPK (Bando Osmeña Pundok Kauswagan) or (my husband) Tommy has something to do with it? Remember, who are we now to be able to do that? If at that time, when Tommy was mayor, he seemed to have no control over the police, what more now?” she said.

Police Lt. Col. Chuck Barandog and his wife and STL partylist nominee Yvonne, were ambushed Sunday night, May 1, by unknown motorcycle-riding gunmen. Both were wounded and are recuperating at a private hospital.

“We (Osmenas) have never been known to do things like that,” Margot pointed out.

During the 2019 polls, the Osmeñas accused the Cebu City police, specifically Barandog, for harassment and intimidation of supporters.

Margot believed that campaigning in this year’s election is much more peaceful compared to the “harassment and intimidation” they encountered in 2019.

“We were always proud to say that in Cebu, it is peaceful and it was always peaceful,” Margot added.

“It was never like that before to the point that people were so scared to go out, so scared that they are fearful for their lives. There was even a checkpoint outside of our (house’s) gate,” she recalled.