Officials have raised a P2 million reward for those who can provide information leading to the arrest of the killers and mastermind of a village official here whose killing was captured on Facebook live Tuesday night.
Barely a day after the killing of Oscar ‘Dodong’ Bucol, chairperson of Barangay Tres de Mayo here, Davao del Sur Gov. Yvonne Cagas and former Gov. Marc Cagas raised a P1 million reward to track down not only his killers but also the mastermind.
The barangay captain, a loyal follower of Cagas, was killed inside the garage of his house while interviewing on FB Live a person who turned over a lost and found ID at 9:20 p.m. on Tuesday. Another P1 million reward is being offered by Vice President Sara Duterte for information that would lead to the arrest of the killers, said Lawyer Israelito Torreon, legal counsel of the Bucol family and Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban). Torreon said Bucol also served as the provincial chair of PDP Laban after he was chosen by PDP members and leaders of Davao del Sur for the post.
‘The killers could not move without the one ordering them, so we are also after the mastermind,’ former Gov. Marc Cagas told the Inquirer by phone.
This developed as Police Brig. General Leon Victor Rosete, director of Police Regional Office 11, announced in a press conference at the Provincial Capitol here the relief of Lt. Col. Peter Glenn Ipong, acting police chief of Digos City, who was tagged among the ‘persons of interest’ in Bucol’s killing.
The video of Bucol’s killing went viral as it showed him speaking before his phone camera when the first shot rang out, and his cry of pain was heard soon after. The video also showed the wounded barangay captain straying on camera, one of his arms bloodied, and the other holding the part of his body that was hit by a bullet.
He was rushed to a private hospital in Digos City, where attending physicians had already declared him dead.
Cagas described Bucol as a cheerful person who loved to help people and did not deserve his fate.
In fact, he said, Bucol just delivered some relief goods to the typhoon-hit Cebu province and had spent three to five days travelling by land.
But the village official, a close ally of former Gov. Cagas, also earned a reputation as a hard-hitting village chief, using his FB page as a platform. Before the attack, the village official had criticized local politicians, including the town’s chief of police.