Joint military-police task force to pursue Degamo killers

MANILA, Philippines — President Marcos has ordered the creation of a joint task force composed of two brigades and six battalions to step up the combined operations of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) to track down the suspects in the killing of Negros Oriental governor Roel Degamo and eight others on March 4.

“This is to inform you that the President, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., gave his instruction to me last night to suppress the criminal activities and impunity in the entire island of Negros and to give justice to the families and loved ones of those who were slain in the assassination of governor Roel Degamo and restore the normalcy and confidence of our people,” Senior Defense Undersecretary Carlito Galvez Jr. announced.

Galvez also announced the deployment of 50 specially trained soldiers to ensure that all those involved in the Degamo slay will be captured in a dragnet.

“Also we have just deployed a 50-man specially-trained strong light reaction company. If you know the light reaction company, they were involved in the battle of Marawi, from the deployment of the Armed Forces of the Philippines to monitor the remaining suspects,” Galvez said in a joint press briefing with AFP chief Gen. Andres Centino.

Centino, for his part, said the joint task force will be headed by the commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, Brig. Gen. Marion Sison, who will be assisted by two brigade commanders, Brig. Gen. Leo Pena and a certain Col. Edralin, both having operational control over six battalions in the island of Negros.

Galvez, however, said the President’s orders are not a declaration of a state of emergency or a state of lawlessness as the Commander-in-Chief is simply exercising his “calling out powers” to “call on the Armed Forces to help the PNP solve the ongoing criminalities in Negros.”

Come back

In the Senate, Sen. Bong Revilla urged Negros Oriental Rep. Arnolfo Teves Jr. to return to the Philippines and face allegations that he masterminded the killing of Degamo.

“He must return to the Philippines and face the allegations. That is just the most prudent and right thing to do, especially that he is an elected official. He should clear his name if he really does not have anything to do with it,” Revilla said partly in Filipino.

In Congress, House Speaker Martin Romualdez also asked Teves to return to the country to face his accusers.

“I advise Rep. Arnie Teves to come back to the country as soon as possible … so that he could clear the name of his family which is being implicated in the death of Gov. Roel Degamo,” Romualdez said, noting that the travel authority issued to Teves by the House of Representative expired on March 9.

He noted that Teves’ travel clearance of to the United States is only for the period Feb. 28 to March 9, 2023. The document is dated Feb. 27.

Teves had requested for travel authority to be extended by one month, House Secretary General Reginald Velasco said in an interview with GMA7, adding that it was Teves’ chief of staff who made the request for extension.

Velasco said he could not act on it because it lacked certain information such as the places that the congressman would be visiting.

Impunity

More than ten cases related to the “pattern of impunity” in Negros Oriental are being investigated by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in the aftermath of the killing of Degamo.

In an ambush interview yesterday, DOJ Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said these cases illustrate the “political violence” prevalent in Negros Oriental that culminated in the governor’s assassination.

Remulla said these cases were brought up to him when he visited Degamo’s wake with President Marcos Jr. on Wednesday.

The department will look at all angles of the killing, including the motive that Degamo’s political rivals – brothers Pryde Henry and Arnolfo Teves Jr. – may have been behind the killing.

Two suspects, Joric Labrador and Benjie Rodriguez, tagged a certain “Congressman Teves” as the mastermind during an interview with television reporters Thursday.

Teves Jr. is the incumbent Negros Oriental third district representative, a post previously held by his brother Henry, who was unseated as Negros Oriental governor when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Degamo’s electoral protest.

For its part, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) has launched an independent investigation on the killing of Degamo, as it expressed alarm over the spate of violence and killings directed toward local government officials over the past months. –  Sheila Crisostomo, Elizabeth Marcelo, Paolo Romero, Marc Jayson Cayabyab