Bounty up for Samar cop killer

TACLOBAN CITY—Samar Gov. Sharee Ann Tan has offered P100,000 as a reward to any person who can arrest or help them find, dead or alive, a man suspected of killing a policeman and wounding another during an antidrug operation in the province last month.

Tan said she hoped the reward money, which would come from her office and the Samar provincial police, would lead to the arrest of Ernesto Gonzales, a suspected drug pusher in Marabut town.

Gonzales shot and killed PO1 Gary Cabaguing and wounded PO1 Nestor Villanueva on Aug. 24 when they went to his house in Barangay Logero, Marabut, to serve an arrest warrant.

Cabaguing, 32, died from a bullet wound in the face while Villanueva was hit in the chest and is still recuperating at Divine Word University Hospital (DWHU) in Tacloban City.

Police said Gonzales shot the policemen from a foxhole he dug in his room.

President Duterte visited Cabaguing’s wake in his family’s house in Catbalogan City last week. He then proceeded to DWHU in Tacloban to visit Villanueva.

Tan said she gave Cabaguing’s family P100,000 in financial assistance. Villanueva’s family also received P100,000 from the governor.

The police gave Cabaguing a posthumous award while Villanueva received the Wounded Personnel Medal.  Joey A. Gabieta, Inquirer Visayas