Dayan disappears with 20 fighting cocks

URBIZTONDO, Pangasinan, Philippines – Ronnie Dayan has disappeared, apparently taking his 20 fighting cocks with him.

The wife and other relatives of Dayan, the former driver-bodyguard and alleged lover of Sen. Leila de Lima, are mum about his whereabouts as authorities begin their manhunt.

Dayan has been ordered arrested by the House of Representatives after being cited in contempt for failing to appear in its probe into the reported illegal drug operations in the New Bilibid Prison (NBP).

Both De Lima and Dayan allegedly benefited from the NBP drug trade.

Chief Insp. Joshua Maximo, town police chief, told The STAR yesterday Dayan’s relatives refused to talk to the media and the police who went to their residence in Barangay Galarin to inquire about him.

Maximo said they were worried about him as he remained in hiding. “Before, some of Dayan’s relatives still talked to the media, but now they don’t entertain (the press) anymore,” he said.

Maximo said sometimes, the relatives would close the gate of their compound as soon as they saw a police patrol car.

“Their lips are all the more sealed now,” he said.

Maximo said last week, he saw by chance Neneng, Dayan’s legal wife, who accompanied her grandchild to a school in Poblacion.

Maximo said they talked briefly and he asked about Dayan, but Neneng told him they did not have any information about her husband.

Neneng lives in the orange bungalow that Dayan owns, but does not engage neighbors in small talk.

Dayan owns a  bigger house painted white in the same area where he and De Lima used to stay on some weekends, as told to media by Dayan’s neighbors and relatives.

Maximo said more than 20 fighting cocks in Dayan’s compound were no longer there.

“He is a big-time cockfight aficionado,” Maximo said.

Maximo said they were unrelenting in their efforts to look for Dayan and had told his relatives and neighbors to relay the message that he should surrender.

Intelligence officers from the police and other law enforcement agencies are also on alert for him.