The Negros Occidental provincial government accounting department failed to reconcile, identify and properly classify balances of asset accounts totaling P1,773,248,362.93, which renders doubtful the validity of 38 percent of the total assets recorded in its book of accounts at the end of 2010, a Commission on Audit  report released recently said.

Provincial Administrator Enrique Pinongan yesterday said the findings of the COA are being addressed through reconciliation of records, which is underway.

Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr. said the COA findings also covered accounts from previous administrations only raised now, and it will mean digging up records from the past to make the appropriate corrections, which will be a tedious process.

Bacolod Police Director Senior Supt. Ricardo de la Paz yesterday said they now have the names of the customers of drug suspect Angelo Bongco and this may aid them in their follow-up or future operations against illegal drugs.

Policemen seized 716 high-grade tablets of ecstacy pills valued at P1,075,000 from Bongco, 40, during a buy-bust operation on June 18, 2011 at the Palmas Del Mar Village and Beach Club in Brgy. Singcang-Airport, Bacolod City. 

De la Paz said the original plan of Bongco was to order 2,500 tablets of ecstacy pills from the U.S. and they had monitored that about 750 tablets had arrived. The first shipment that arrived was 250 tablets and the second shipment was 500 tablets, both through cargo forwarders, he said.

Two ambulant vendors were waylaid and shot dead at about 5 a.m. yesterday reportedly by about six unidentified suspects in Brgy. Bantayan, Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental, for still unknown reasons.

SPO1 Walter Seron, Kabankalan PNP Desk Officer, said the two victims identified as Jayme Recomono, 50, and Joemarie Villarosa, 44, succumbed to multiple gunshot wounds.

Six empty shells believed to be that of a shotgun were recovered from the scene of the incident.