Negros Occidental Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson (PNA Bacolod file photo)
BACOLOD CITY -- Negros Occidental Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson said that using emergency powers is an option President Rodrigo R. Duterte can exercise to keep the peace in Negros Island, but is hoping it will not happen.
“That, indeed is an option of the national government through the President to use such powers. I guess the purpose also is to restore peace and order in the area of Negros Oriental…I just hope it does not happen here in our island,” the governor said in a press briefing on Thursday.
Lacson noted there have been no recent reports of killings, and said he hopes this will continue and not force the President to use emergency powers.
“I hope it doesn’t reach that way. They already sent 300 Special Action Force personnel. We’d like to think that is really (aimed) to restore order in Negros Oriental and so far it’s holding,” he added.
On Wednesday night, Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said the President has increased anew the bounty for the capture, “dead or alive”, of those who killed four police personnel in Ayungon, Negros Oriental from PHP3 to PHP5 million.
He added that the Chief Executive warned the enemies of the state on the island of Negros “that he will use his emergency powers under the Constitution to quell the lawless violence engulfing the island, as well as to crush all forms of threats aimed to destroy the government”.
Panelo added that Duterte has also issued a stern warning “that members of the New People's Army (NPA) in Negros have gone overboard and that their killings have become brazen and unbridled where men in uniform, as well as civilians are murdered with impunity”.
The slain policemen were Cpl. Relebert Beronio, Pat. Raffy Callao, Pat. Ruel Cabellon, and Pat. Marquino de Leon, who were all intelligence personnel of the 704th Mobile Force Company Regional Mobile Force Battalion of the Philippine National Police in Central Visayas. (PNA)
