Cebu Mayor’s Ambush ‘Partially Solved’

The police on Wednesday considered the ambush of San Fernando, Cebu Mayor Lakambini Reluya “partially solved”, as the Special Investigation Task Group Reluya identified the primary suspects based on the accounts of the mayor herself and her staff.

This, as the two-week ultimatum given last January 23 by Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Oscar Albayalde for the resolution of the case ended Wednesday.

However, Police Regional Office-7 (Central Visayas) director Chief Supt. Debold Sinas, in a press conference, said although the case is “partially solved, but not cleared”, the task group continues to gather more pieces of evidence to bolster the case against the perpetrators.

Sinas said they considered Jerome Labitad and Felix Abacajan Jr. as “primary suspects” in the ambush incident that injured the mayor and killed her husband, Association of Barangay Council president Ricardo Reluya.

“We considered Labitad and Abacajan as armed and dangerous,” Sinas said.

Senior Supt. Manuel Abrugen, Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO) director, said Labitad and Abacajan were identified by Reluya’s security escort and a witness through their mug shots in the police’s rogue gallery.

Witnesses claimed the two alighted from their vehicle and approached the mayor’s van shortly after firing shots at the victims’ vehicle amid heavy traffic in the South National Highway in Talisay City.

It can be recalled that Labitad was able to escape after a five-minute gun battle when members of the Provincial Intelligence Branch of the Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO) served several warrants of arrest against him at his uncle’s place in Campo 8, Talisay City last January 30.

He was with his uncle, Councilman Felix Abajacan Sr., when the raid occurred. Felix is the father of Abajacan Jr., the second suspect in the ambush, the police said.

Labitad, the police said, is considered as the leader of a gun-for-hire group that established a lair in the highlands of Talisay City.

He and his group was the subject of a police search following the discovery of a sack with 80 firearms buried near a cliff in Sitio 5, Campo 4 in Talisay City.

Meanwhile, San Fernando townsfolk on Wednesday morning participated in a mass at the San Isidro Labrador Parish in Barangay Poblacion to mark the last day of novena for the eternal repose of the mayor’s husband. Ricardo was buried in his home place of Dipolog City. (PNA)