‘SHOOTOUT’. The vehicle used by Calbayog City Mayor Ronald Aquino swerved to the roadside after a reported shootout with policemen in Lonoy village late Monday (March 8, 2021). The mayor, three policemen, and two civilians died. (Contributed photo)
TACLOBAN CITY (UPDATE) – The Philippine National Police (PNP) in Eastern Visayas is digging deeper into the reported gunfight that killed Calbayog City Mayor Ronaldo Aquino, three policemen, and two civilians late Monday afternoon.
On the same night, the PNP created a Special Investigation Task Group (SITG), the team headed by Region 8 deputy regional director for operations Col. Edwin Wagan, had their first case conference early Tuesday, according to PNP regional spokesperson Lt. Col. Maria Bella Rentuaya in a statement to the media.
“The investigation is still ongoing. Our SOCO (Scene of the Crime Operations) returned to the area today to assess the trajectory of bullets,” she told reporters.
The PNP regional office has yet to conclude if the incident was a “misencounter” between the camp of the mayor and the Samar police drug enforcement unit and has yet to issue an official statement, Rentuaya added.
The shooting, which took place at 5:30 p.m. at the city’s Laboyao Bridge in Lonoy village, was reported to the police at 6 p.m. and initially regarded as an ambush.
A revised police report released at 8 a.m. disclosed that while Aquino and his aides were heading north on board a white van, one of his security personnel fired at the vans, which they allegedly thought were suspiciously tailing them.
“The other vehicles, which were later identified to be carrying PNP personnel from IMEG (integrity monitoring and enforcement group) and DEU (drug enforcement unit), then retaliated, hence a firefight ensued,” the PNP regional office here said.
Dead on the spot were Aquino, S/Sgt. Rodeo Balonzo, S/Sgt. Romeo Laoyon, and Dennis Abayon, the mayor’s driver. Wounded were S/Sgt. Neil Cebu; Mansfield Labonite, the mayor’s aide; and Clint John Paul Yauder, a local government employee.
Laoyon was onboard in one of the vehicles reportedly tailing the mayor’s car while Balonzo, Cebu, and Labonite were in the same car with Aquino.
Yauder, whose car was just passing by but got caught in the shooting, later died while under treatment at St. Camillus Hospital in Calbayog.
Rentuaya said the body of Capt. Joselito Tabada, chief of Samar PNP DEU and acting chief of police of nearby Gandara town, was recovered under the bridge on the same night.
Tabada was onboard a van said to be tailing the mayor's car. His death was not included in the spot report due to the late discovery of his body.
The mayor and his aides were heading to their family-owned resort to attend his son’s birthday party after playing tennis.
Aquino, 59, who was on his third and last term as the city's chief executive, served as mayor since 2011 after then-mayor Reynaldo Uy was killed in a fiesta celebration in Hinabangan, Samar. The incident remained unsolved after 10 years.
Calbayog, a commercial hub in the northwest part of Samar province, is about 172 kilometers north of Tacloban, the regional capital. (PNA)
