Ex-actor Royette Padilla jailed, charged for firing gun at neighbor’s house

ANGELES CITY, Philippines—Former actor Royette Padilla was detained in a police station here on Saturday night for allegedly firing his gun at his neighbor’s house in Clark Freeport Zone.

Police said Padilla was facing charges of grave threat and violation of Republic Act No. 7610, or the Special Protection of Children against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act.

City prosecutor Mark Oliver Sison, who went to the city police’s Station 4 on Sunday morning to conduct an inquest on Padilla, found probable cause in the cases filed against him and recommended his detention.

In their sworn statements, complainants Efren David, 64, and Evelyn Bernardo, 34, said they, their two children and a housemate were in their house on Pasak Street in Redwood Villas in the free port when the former actor allegedly fired his gun twice.

They said the screen door of their house was damaged by a bullet from the gun fired by Padilla.

Bernardo said she was preparing food in the kitchen with her daughters, aged 11 and 8, at 5:40 p.m. when Padilla, who was on the other side of the fence, started talking to her.

“It looked like he was drunk. I ignored him because we were afraid to talk to him,” Bernardo said.

Police said this apparently angered Padilla, who supposedly told Bernardo that he would put her inside a sack.

Bernardo, her daughters and their housemate then went to the dining room to eat.

“We heard a gunshot and then we saw him enter our garage. He was trying to enter our house through the screen door and was shouting, ‘Go out! Face me!’ He fired his gun again, with the bullet piercing the screen door,” she said.

The children, in their sworn statements, told police that they were very scared and cried while hiding in the living room.

Bernardo said she called Clark Development Corp. (CDC) to report the incident.

When personnel of the CDC’s public safety department arrived, they saw Padilla sitting in front of his house. They restrained him and turned him over to the policemen who arrived after several minutes.

The policemen, however, did not find the gun that Padilla allegedly fired.

An empty shell for a 9-mm pistol was found outside the complainants’ house. A deformed slug was also found inside the house.

Padilla, who was wearing a gray shirt, black shorts and a pair of slippers, denied firing a gun at his neighbor’s house.

Padilla, who belongs to a family of actors, became controversial in the 1990s after he introduced himself as a general of a group known as H-World United Nations Philippine Military Government International Police Commission.

On July 4, 2011, Padilla was arrested by policemen here after his wife, Jane Cheryl, complained that he beat her up in a bar in Clark Freeport Zone.

Padilla’s wife withdrew the case against him the next day but he momentarily remained in jail after police learned that he had a warrant of arrest for frustrated homicide, which had been pending since 1998. He was freed on the same day after posting bail.—Jun Malig, Inquirer Central Luzon