A policeman participating in the PNP Special Counter-Insurgency Operation Unit Training allegedly committed suicide Sunday, while an assistant instructor of SCOUT was found dead in his room, at the Camp Herman Carballo training site in Barangay Nagbagang, Sta. Catalina, Negros Oriental, Monday.

Sr. Insp. Dexter Calacar, manager of the Regional Special Training Unit 7 of the PNP Region 7, identified the trainee as Police Office 1 Maxgen Paco, of SCOUT Class 30-12, who went home on a special pass Saturday, and was supposed to return to the camp Sunday.

However, Paco’s family told the training camp that the policeman died of a single gunshot wound between his eyes, in what police investigators claimed was possibly self-inflicted, or a result of accidental firing, Calacar said.

Paco’s parents said he had a serious argument with his girlfriend, and this may have driven him to commit suicide. But Paco was also said to have been cleaning a firearm that may have discharged by accident, Calacar added.

Meanwhile, SPO2 Dioninardo Tomale, 41, of Basay, Negros Oriental, who was assigned to the RSTU-7 as assistant SCOUT instructor, was found lifeless in his room at the training camp.

Calacar said they looked for the instructor at about 7 a.m. Monday when he failed to show up at breakfast. Training staff also went to the back of the building, peered through the window panes, and saw Tomale lying on his bed.

When they were able to enter the room, they found Tomale already stiff, and bluish-purple in color, he added.

Tomale was rushed to the Bayawan District Hospital but was declared dead on arrival. The attending physicians said he died in his sleep, Calacar said.

Paranormal manifestations?

The series of events in the 45-day SCOUT program at the historically “war-ravaged” Camp Carballo has left trainers and instructors baffled and even fearful. Some of them recalled thoughts about alleged supernatural or demonic manifestations.

Weeks before the SCOUT program started on March 28, a policewoman assigned to the Regional Public Safety Battalion in Mabinay, Negros Oriental, who claimed to have a “third eye”, said she dreamt of many dead people, in what later turned out to be the training site in Nagbagang, Calacar said.

A training instructor, who is a member of the PNP Special Weapons and Tactics in the province, woke up one night, screaming, and said he was being choked by an unseen force.

As the training staff were trying to subdue the instructor, he kept shouting that the “unseen” warned of taking the lives of a trainee and an AI. He was returned to the Negros Oriental Provincial Police Office, Calacar said.

He added that they have asked a Catholic priest to offer mass weekly at the camp, while the newly-renovated buildings have also been blessed.

In the late 80s, the camp was attacked by a truckload of New People’s Army members, who killed several operatives of the then Philippine Constabulary/Integrated National Police, at the height of the insurgency problem in Negros Oriental.

Known then as Camp Ausejo, its buildings and grounds were left unoccupied for several years, until the PNP allocated funds for its renovation recently.*JFP

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