GAPAN CITY, Nueva Ecija, (PNA) — Barely a week after the Sanguniang Panlalawigan summoned him for the spate of killings in this city, the police station commander here has been relieved from his post by the police provincial director.
Sr. Supt. Crizaldo Nieves, PNP provincial director, has relieved police Supt. Bernard Orig and replaced him with Supt. Dionisio Ynigo.
Orig stayed for only two months.
Nieves said on Saturday that Orig’s relief was a command decision based on the request of the local government unit (LGU).
He said the selection of Ynigo was mandated under Republic Act 6975, also known as the PNP Law, wherein the sitting mayor may choose from five nominees.
Ynigo was a former station commander during the administration of Mayor Maricel Natividad’s father, ex-three term mayor Ernesto Natividad.
Orig’s relief came in the wake of the spate of killings in this town, which prompted the SP to summon him to shed light on the incidents.
Earlier, Vice Gov. Jose Gay Padiernos, who hails from here, expressed alarm over the crime wave, indicating the presence of a ‘reign of terror’ in Gapan City.
Padiernos said the peace and order condition in the city is chaotic.
“It’s no joke. I thought it was just one or two killings but it seems there is now a pattern. It’s my moral obligation to find out the situation,” he said.
Over the past two months, the Gapan police recorded four high-profile killings, including the ambush attempt on Emerson Pascual where four persons, including a rookie policeman, were killed and the gun attack on councilor Danilo de Guzman last August 31.
Aside from the four attacks, the city election officer was also wounded in an ambush staged by motorcycle-riding gunmen in Jaen town on Aug 23.
Orig said the string of killings did not mean a general breakdown of peace and order in the city.
“There is no reign of terror in Gapan, that I assure you,” he said.
He said the attack on Pascual was a simple case of “history repeating itself,” apparently referring to the raid on a cockpit owned by the Pascuals in 2006 which led to the killings of Pascual’s brothers Erickson and Ebertson.
The elder Natividad and 17 others were charged in the 2006 attack.
He was arrested while undergoing dialysis treatment in Metro Manila a few months before the May 2013 elections.
Orig said Nieves wanted him to stay on but went on with his relief based on the request of the LGU.