TACLOBAN CITY – Chief Supt. Dionardo Carlos, police regional director, assured the public that Eastern Visayas remain to be peaceful.
Carlos made this assurance in the wake of the killing of an alleged member of a terror group in Ormoc City and the explosion incident in Laoang, Northern Samar that killed two people and injured two others.
Carlos said that police operatives and other law enforcement agencies in the region are conducting intelligence gathering and monitoring to ensure that no terror group will even enter the region.
“We are doing our best to monitor everything especially in the southern part to ensure that all threat groups will not able to enter Eastern Visayas,” the police regional director said.
The ports in southern part of the region including Ormoc City has a link to Mindanao and Cebu that can be used by unscrupulous people, to include terror group.
“So we monitor these areas to ensure that all threat groups would not spread chaos in the region. If there is violation of law, then we take precautionary measures so that we will not be caught off guard of their presence,” Carlos said.
But Carlos said that they could only do much reason they still need the help and cooperation of the public.
“If they see suspicious people in their area, they should immediately report it to the police station so that we can monitor these people,” Carlos said.
On Thursday (November 22), a joint forces from the 802nd Brigade, the PNP and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group killed Joseph Anulga, alias Dawud, which military believed was linked to Dawlah Islamiya, in a buy-bust operation.
Report from the authorities said that Anulga was involved in gun running activities and tried to recruit local residents of Ormoc to convert into Islam.
The military also linked Anulga to Yusof Macuto, the main suspect in a foiled bombing try at the US Embassy in 2016 and the Hilongos, Leyte, bombing incident on December 28,2016 that injured more than 30 people, some of them were children.
Meanwhile, two men were killed and two others were injured when a bomb exploded in Barangay Bubulosan, Laoang, Northern Samar, also on Thursday.
The victims were identified as Ome Inocentes and Gaga Solana, both from San Antonio, Northern Samar while injured were Junjun Donato and Nilo Cuanico.
Initial report from PNP Laoang said that the explosion happened in a house rented by a certain Dario Ayes, said to be a former policeman.
The house was allegedly used by them in making improvised explosive devices.
(ROEL T. AMAZONA)
