LEGAZPI CITY — A gang leader identified as Bicol’s “most wanted criminal” was killed after a shootout with a team of policemen and soldiers tasked to serve him an arrest warrant in Metro Manila on Wednesday.
Police Brig. Gen. Andre Dizon, Bicol regional police director, said the death of Gilbert Concepcion, the leader of the Concepcion criminal gang based in Libon, Albay, could cripple the private armed group operating in the provinces of Albay and Camarines Sur and nearby areas. The gang, Dizon said, was involved in robbery, extortion, gunrunning and gun-for-hire activities.
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Dizon said policemen and soldiers was about to serve an arrest warrant against Concepcion at Barangay San Martin de Porres in Parañaque City at 6 p.m. on Wednesday when the team was met with gunfire. Concepcion tried to elude arrest after he was hit, but was later cornered by the government team and was killed in an ensuing shootout.
“The death of Concepcion sends a message to other … criminal elements that they can run but they cannot hide, as [the long arm] of the law will finally catch them,” Dizon said in a telephone interview on Thursday.
Ex-rebel, soldier
Concepcion was a former New People’s Army rebel who later applied to become a soldier but was dismissed from the service after he went AWOL (absent without official leave) in 2007.Police said he was listed as the Department of the Interior and Local Government’s most wanted person in Bicol, with a bounty of P420,000.
Dizon said Concepcion had six standing warrants for kidnapping with murder, serious illegal detention, murder, direct assault and rape, among other cases.
“He started by adopting a ‘Robin Hood’ style; that’s the impression he built among residents of Libon. He loots and gives [what he stole] to [poor people] until such time that he [changed] and became [powerful]. He could do what he wanted, until he resorted to raping and killing his victims,” Dizon said.
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Concepcion’s group, police said, was responsible for several hits, including the murder of Makati City engineer Nelson Morales in Malinao, Albay, in 2012.The case of Morales, the Albay provincial chair of the United Nationalist Alliance led by then Vice President Jejomar Binay, was suspected to be related to politics as he was then planning to run for mayor.
In 2022, skeletal remains of six suspected victims of Concepcion’s group were exhumed at Barangay Molosbolos in Libon.Dizon said the police would continue their operations to arrest the remnants of Concepcion’s group.
“There’s a big chance that [economic activities] and the peace and order [situation] in Libon will boom [following the death of Concepcion],” Dizon said.
Libon was placed under the control of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) during the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections in October last year due to a series of killings of village officials.
The Comelec later declared the elections in the town peaceful, as no untoward incidents were reported or recorded. —MA. APRIL MIER-MANJARES