Personal grudges eyed
in slay of Toboso cop

Personal grudges led to the fatal shooting of a police trooper assigned at the 611th Provincial Mobile Group, in Toboso, Negros Occidental, on July 9, police said.

Toboso police chief Nestor Tuadles yesterday said the suspect, identified as Florentino Cajucson, a public market watchman, had a conflict with the victim, PO3 Socrates Cuevas.

Cuevas was shot five times in the presence of his wife, allegedly by Cajucson at the public market of Toboso, police investigations showed.

The victim sustained multiple gunshot wounds and was declared dead on arrival at the San Carlos District Hospital in San Carlos City.

Supt. Edgardo Ordaniel, 611th PMG director, said they are now monitoring all exit points in northern Negros, in response to reports that Cajucson may have fled to Cebu.

Cuevas and his wife, had just left a videoke house near the public market when Cajucson, 49, suddenly emerged from behind them and shot him, Ordaniel said.

One of the three witnesses whose sworn statements taken by the 611th PMG investigators, identified Cajucson as the gunman, police said.

Tuadles said Cuevas was under the influence of intoxicating liquor when he was killed.*GPB

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NPA kills Tubungan resident

ILOILO CITY -- Communist rebels yesterday shot dead a farmer in Tubungan town in Iloilo whom they accused of committing abuses against residents.

The New People's Army Napoleon Tumagtang Command, in an e-mailed statement, owned up to the killing of Arturo Tagudinay of Barangay Igdampug Sur in Tubungan, 41 kms south of this city.

The rebel command is under the Southern Front Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines and operates in southern Iloilo and parts of Antique province

Around 30 heavily armed NPA rebels swooped down on Tagudinay's house around 7 a.m. before shooting him dead, Capt. Lowen Gil Marquez, chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Civil Relations Service in Western Visayas, said.

The attack came barely a month after NPA rebels bombed and severely damaged a cell site of Globe Telecoms in the same town. The rebels had also overran and briefly held the town hall in 2005 in a daytime attack.

In their statement signed by Ka Ariston Remus, the rebels accused Tagudinay of being "a counter-revolutionary and anti-people element."

Remus said they had repeatedly warned and reminded the victim "to stop his crimes against the people."

The rebel spokesperson claimed that since 1998, residents of Igdampug Sur and neighboring villages have complained against Tagudinay for taking mangoes without paying for them. He also accused the victim of stealing and destroying the crops and livestock of his personal enemies and of indiscriminately firing his firearms.

The rebels had confiscated Tagudinay's.38 caliber pistol and 12-gauge homemade shotgun but his abuses only stopped for a short while, Remus said.

He also accused the victim of using the name of the NPA in extorting from candidates in the 2004 elections, and of killing barangay councilor Nilbert Camariosa during the canvassing of votes at the barangay school last May 14.

"He was given sufficient opportunity to change ways but he refused to change. We hope this will serve as a lesson to other counter-revolutionary and anti-people elements," Remus said in the statement.

But Marquez refuted the rebels' claims. He said the victim was killed because he refused to give in to the NPA's demand to give palay regularly.*NPB

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Welder nabbed for theft

A 32-year-old welder was arrested by the police for allegedly stealing cut iron plates from his employer's compound Tuesday night, the Philippine National Police said.

Jolito Berdin of Purok Riverside, Zone 1, Brgy. Banago, Bacolod City, said that he took the two sacks of iron plates from the Negros Navigation compound at the Circumferential Road in the city to sell them to a junkshop and buy medicine for his child who has asthma.

Berdin was endorsed to Police Station 3 by security guard Junerey Ibgos, 27, after he was allegedly caught in the act of taking the iron plates weighing around 90 kilos from the yard of the shipping company at about 8 p.m. Tuesday, police reports said.

The suspect, who had been working for the company for a year, said that he resorted to stealing the materials because he has a lot of debts and nobody wants to lend him money anymore. Berdin said his child, is the youngest of his seven children, has been hospitalized several times already because of asthma.

He said that he is willing to ask for forgiveness from his supervisor.*PP

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