Police sees politics behind the Calbayog check point attack

By ELI C. DALUMPINES (PIA Samar)
March 27, 2007

CATBALOGAN, Samar  –  Police authorities here maintained that the recent attack on a check point manned by four personnel of the Philippine National Police (PNP) to enforce the COMELEC gun ban was not the doing of the communist New People’s Army (NPA) as reported earlier.

Samar Police Chief P/SSupt. Asdali Idja Abah, in a report yesterday, blamed the partisan armed group of a certain politician in Samar’s 1st district for the attack saying the said politician was in desperation that the movement of his men was restricted because of the presence of the PNP check point.

A group composed of six armed men on board a van open fired at the PNP check point in Sitio Talahib, Brgy. Trinidad, Calbayog City at around 8 p.m. Friday (March 23) killing PO3 Valeriano Valenzuela and PO1 Ramil Biso, who was undergoing his Field Training Program.

The group carted away one M16 rifle and a 9mm cal. Pistol which was issued to PO3 Valenzuela and withdraw north immediately after the attack.

Witnesses disclosed that prior to the incident one of the suspects who was standing across the check point made a call through a cellphone and after a few minutes a van stopped at about 50 meters away from the check point where about 6 men armed with assorted firearms got out and opened fire at the police officers on duty.

A witness, however, said that PO1 Valenzuela might have known the suspects as he saw him talking to one of the suspects just a few meters away before the shooting took place.

It was learned that Valenzuela’s older brother and Sta. Margarita Police Chief PInsp. Nestor Valenzuela was tasked by the higher headquarters to make a research on the previous cases filed against the said politician.