CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY -- Individuals who spread false information about the supposed presence of armed men that caused hundreds of families here to flee Tuesday evening will be held liable, officials said.
Col. Edgardo de Leon, commander of the Army's 403rd Infantry Brigade (403IB), said they already identified a person of interest behind the false information that sent some 190 families evacuating from the upland village of Tagpangi to seek safety.
De Leon said the suspect may face legal charges for alarm and scandal.
But according to Senior Insp. Jerson Estanilla, Lumbia Police Station chief, said that there are more than 300 families in their own list, who are from Sitio Batinay in Barangay Tagpangi who left their communities have all gone back home.
The villagers, Estanilla said, were fed wrong information and that there was no presence of armed groups such as the New People’s Army (NPA) in Tagpangi.
Supt. Mardy Hortillosa, the city police spokesperson, a resident in Batinay saw a flicker of light in an abandoned house early Tuesday evening prompting him to inform his family and neighbors to pack up on suspicion that a group of armed rebels might be in the vicinity.
“It was just based on suspicion but it spread like wildfire,” Hortillosa said.
Janjan Calam, a village councilor of Barangay Lumbia where the families sought temporary shelter, said the evacuees started converging around 8 p.m. Tuesday at a covered court.
Calam said the City Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office (CDRRMO) responded by sending personnel and rescue vehicles together with food and medicines.
City administrator Teodoro Sabuga-a Jr. said that by 1 a.m. Wednesday, personnel from the City Social Welfare and Development (CSWD) assisted the families to return home.
De Leon said a team of personnel from the Army's 4th Infantry Division (ID) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) immediately conducted validation in the area and found the information to be false.
"It is akin to a bomb scare. It will cause undue panic to the community," said De Leon said, whose unit covers Cagayan de Oro City, Misamis Oriental, and parts of Bukidnon.
Calam hailed local officials for responding immediately by providing vehicles to transport the evacuees back to their homes. (PNA)
