6 ‘goons’ of council bet nabbed in Cebu town

CEBU CITY, Philippines–Police arrested on Friday night six men, who were alleged “goons” of a candidate for councilor in Alegria town, 115 kilometers southwest of Cebu City.

The suspects were detained at the police station pending filing of charges for violating the election gun ban and possession of illegal drugs.

The six were allegedly hired by Arnold Cuevas, a village chief of Barangay Sta. Felomina, Alegria who is running for municipal councilor under One Cebu, according to Inspector Sandy Roble, Alegre police chief, in a report to Senior Superintendent Patrocenio Commendador, police provincial director.

Representative Pablo John Garcia, One Cebu secretary general and gubernatorial candidate, denied that any of their candidates in the province had goons.

“Do you think that with the whole might of the administration and General Garbo (Chief Supt. Marcelo Garbo, police director for Central Visayas), arrayed against us, any of our local candidates would be crazy to hire goons?” he said in text message to Inquirer.

“This is to clearly justify the heavy presence of our RMG (Regional Mobile Group) personnel in the towns at the disposal of the administration,” he added.

Roble identified the suspects as Odelon Pastor, 26; John Carl Dacay, 24; Talper Tupas, 20; Michael Gramatica, 23; Jojie Mejares, 24; and Larry Paulo, 22.

The police allegedly recovered one homemade .357 pistol with three live ammunitions from Pastor and three small sachets of shabu and two rolled aluminum tin foils from Paulo.

Roble said the group allegedly arrived in Alegria midnight of Thursday and joined

The report said the group arrived midnight of May 8 and joined 13 others who were later divided into groups with three members each. The groups were distributed to the mountain barangays.

Roble said the suspects didn’t know where the others were. With a report from Carmel Matus, Inquirer Visayas