Retards in the Government 339

It's your weekly compendium of foolishness and corruption in the Philippine government.

 

https://www.philstar.com/nation/2023/11/15/2311713/newly-elected-kagawad-davao-del-norte-shot-dead

A suspected gun-for-hire shot dead a newly-elected barangay councilor in San Isidro town in Davao del Norte in an attack on Tuesday.

Reports by the Catholic Radio Station DXMS and DXMY-Radio Mindanao Network, both in Cotabato City, on Wednesday identified the fatality as Jay Glen Dela Rama, who was elected barangay councilman in Barangay Sawata in Davao del Norte.

Dela Rama, a businessman, was a retired member of the Philippine Army, according to radio reports. He died in a hospital while being treated for gunshot wounds. 

A security camera recording that circulated on Facebook showed an attacker approached Dela Rama inside his roadside store in Barangay Sawata and shot him repeatedly and finished him off as he fell on the floor.

The suspect reportedly escaped by riding a Yamaha Aerox motorcycle parked nearby, driven by an accomplice.

Another newly elected barangay councilor has been assassainated. 

https://mb.com.ph/2023/11/18/newly-elected-village-chair-shot-dead-in-nueva-vizcaya

A newly elected barangay chairman was shot dead inside his house in Purok 3, Calitlitan, here on Friday evening, November 17.

Police identified the victim as Rolando Serapon, 76.

Serapon was inside his house when the suspect, wearing black short pants and T-shirt,  arrived and fired at the victim. 

The victim was taken to a hospital where he was declared dead. The suspect escaped onboard on a single motorcycle. 

Police are pursuing the suspect and the forensics investigators are combing evidence for clues.

Another newly elected barangay chairman has been assassinated.

https://www.philstar.com/nation/2023/11/19/2312666/4-cops-p18-million-zamboanga-city-robbery-arrested

Four policemen, one of them a lieutenant, were arrested in police operations in Zamboanga City during a police operation on Saturday. This came four days after their suspected involvement in a robbery where a local Tausug trader was reportedly stripped of P1.8 million in cash.

Police Lt. Ariel Jolatoria, Patrolman Rayan Apostol, Senior Master Sgt. Alnajer Ynawat and Staff Sgt. Edcel Nicolas were first reported by authorities in Zamboanga City to have intruded into the residence of a Tausug merchant, Al-Ghabid Abdul, in the guise of serving him a fake warrant of arrest for a criminal offense, divested him of mobile phones and took with them his two portable safety vaults as they escaped on Wednesday last week.

Jalatoria belongs to the Regional Support Unit-Police Regional Office-9, while Apostol is a member of the Zamboanga City Police Office 2nd Mobile Force Company. Ynawat is under the Zamboanga City Police Office Mobile Patrol Unit and the fourth suspect, Nicolas, is assigned at the Zamboanga City Police Station 7.

Officials of the Zamboanga City Police Office and PRO-9 confirmed to reporters on Sunday that the four policemen are now detained. They will be prosecuted for armed robbery.

Four cops have been arrested for robbery.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1214049

A newly reelected village councilor in Maguindanao del Norte was killed in an ambush Monday afternoon in Sultan Mastura municipality, police said.

The slain village councilor was identified as Anwar Mamukan, 48, of Barangay Balut.

He sustained six gunshot wounds in various parts of his body and died on the spot.

“Mamukan was driving his white vehicle (MAV-4906) at about 4 p.m. Monday when two men onboard a motorbike fired at him several times along the crossroads in Barangay Balut and Sec. Narciso Ramos Highway,” Capt. Elmar Elarcosa, Sultan Mastura municipal police station chief, said in a report on Tuesday.

Responding police officers found empty shells of a .45-caliber pistol at the crime scene, he added.

A newly re-elected village councilor has been assassinated. 

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1214047

A former village councilor here and two others were arrested Monday afternoon for possession of three unlicensed firearms during a police entrapment.

Former Barangay Rosary Heights 7 village councilor Okan Salik was nabbed after completing the illegal transaction with an undercover agent near the village hall at about 3 p.m. Monday.

Operatives also arrested his cohorts, Alrajem Sansaluna, 23, from Koronadal City, South Cotabato; and Alinor Silongan, 21, of Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte, according to a report released Tuesday by Lt. Col. Ariel Huesca, chief of the police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (CIDG-BARMM).

Recovered from the suspects were a 5.56 mm rifle, two .45-caliber pistols, ammunition and magazines, mobile phones, a vehicle, and the PHP200,000 marked money.

Salik later denied personally knowing Sansaluna and Silongan and that he is a gunrunner.

CIDG agents likewise found a 5.56mm rifle in Salk’s car, which the suspect said was for "self-defense" following a gun attack a few years back.

The suspects, currently locked up at the CIDG-BARMM detention facility here, are facing charges for violation of Republic Act 10591 or the Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulation Act.

A former village councilor has been arrested for gunrunning. 

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1863431/negros-occidental-town-councilor-suspended-for-absences

The La Castellana town council suspended during a special session Monday, Nov. 20, a councilor linked to a police recruitment scam for a series of unexplained absences.

The council approved the immediate suspension of Councilor Donato “Natnat” Dumaguit for 15 days without remuneration and ordered him to pay a fine of P3,000 without prejudice to the filing of a case against him.

Councilor Leonardo Bacquian said the majority of the council members voted to expel Dumaguit from the town council, which would have to be decided and ordered by the court.

“They have instructed the council secretary to tap the services of their lawyer to file the charges seeking the expulsion of Dumaguit in court,” he said.

Dumaguit has had 13 unexplained absences from the council sessions.

Large scale estafa charges have been filed against Dumaguit at the Negros Occidental Prosecutor’s Office for alleged involvement in recruitment of 40 persons, most of whom were La Castellana residents, for jobs in the Philippine National Police, for a fee.

A town Councilor facing estate charges has been suspended for absenteeism. 

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1862967/coa-confirms-doh-ps-dbm-lapses-in-pharmally-deals

The Department of Health (DOH) and the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) committed several lapses in the handling of funds and purchase of COVID-19 supplies at the peak of the pandemic, a special audit by the Commission on Audit (COA) has confirmed.

Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara said the two agencies’ “shortcomings” were explained in detail in a nine-volume report on the COA’s audit of the government’s multibillion-peso deals with Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp., the supplier at the center of an overpricing and corruption scandal in 2021.

Angara, chair of the Senate finance committee, made the disclosure as he defended the COA’s proposed P13.53-billion budget for 2024 during plenary deliberations.

Reading from a note handed to him by the COA officials, Angara said the special audit had determined, among other findings, that the DOH “failed to coordinate with PS-DBM on the timeliness of the procurement, schedule of deliveries and periodical consumption of supplies.”

He said the DOH was also found to have not “exert[ed] effort in monitoring liquidation of fund transfers to PS-DBM” amounting to P42 billion.

PS-DBM, the report found, had failed to “determine the availability and capability of the supplier (Pharmally) to provide the required quantity” and had made “no request for further negotiation from two entities who offered to supply the contracts.” Angara said his committee would release a copy of the COA findings.

The COA says the DOH and DBM committed several lapses in their deals with Pharmacy during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1214159

A gunman shot dead a former mayor of Cateel town, Davao Oriental, outside a fast food chain in Barangay Buhangin in this city on Wednesday morning.

Giselo Velasco Castillones, the mayor of Cateel from 1983 to 1986, was sitting in the passenger seat of his car and about to leave the fast food chain at around 10 a.m. when a still-unidentified attacker approached and shot him.

Based on the report of the Bajada Police Station, Castillones was with his driver Junie Castro, who was wounded, and a certain Alma Lozentes, who was unscathed, during the attack.

Five empty shells from a .45-caliber pistol were recovered from the crime scene.

Witnesses said the gunman boarded a motorcycle and sped off toward the Buhangin area.

Castillones was declared dead by responding Central 911 personnel, while Castro was brought to a nearby hospital for treatment and is now in stable condition.

Witnesses said the shooter was wearing a tube mask and maroon cap that concealed his face, police said.

A former mayor has been assassinated. 

https://www.philstar.com/nation/2023/11/23/2313660/teacher-husband-die-cotabato-gun-attack

Gunmen shot dead a public school teacher and her husband in a gun attack at a secluded area in the hinterland Banisilan town, Cotabato on Thursday morning.

The Bansilan Municipal Police Station, in an initial report to Cotabato provincial police director Col. Harold Ramos, said that Juanito Fuertes Romaguero Jr. and his teacher-spouse, Angelie, died from multiple gunshot wounds.

The couple were riding their family-owned tricycle on their way to the Pantar Elementary School in Banisilan, when men on motorcycles overtook, blocked their route and opened fire.

Their attackers had escaped even before responding barangay tanods could reach the scene.

Romelito Flores, superintendent of schools in Cotabato, has condemned the atrocity and called on the Banisilan MPS and the Cotabato Provincial Police Office to identify their killers for immediate prosecution.

The provincial director said that Romaguero died on the spot while his wife succumbed to bullet wounds while being treated in a hospital where she was brought by local government emergency responders.

Ramos said personnel of the Banisilan MPS have enlisted the support of local officials in putting closure to the incident.

A teacher and her husband have been assassinated.