Ronda mayor’s guards attacked: 1 dead, 1 hurt

Ronda Mayor Esteban Sia has requested for additional security from the Cebu Provincial Police after one of his bodyguards was gunned down and another one injured when two unidentified men fired at them at the town’s public market Thursday evening.

The Ronda Police identified the fatality as Orlando Ogario, 52, a resident of sitio Guizo in barangay Poblacion of the town. He was hit at the left side of his chest and legs; his companion, Lito Verdijo was hit on the right leg and is now recuperating in a hospital.

Cebu Provincial Police director, Sr. Supt. Carmelo Valmoria, has already ordered Ronda’s chief of police to investigate the incident.

Mayor Sia told TV Patrol Central Visayas that he could not avoid thinking that the incident may be connected to politics, citing his vice mayor as belonging to the opposition.

Vice Mayor Mariano Blanco, in the same TV news, however brushed aside the suspicions of the mayor and asked the police to dig into the incident.

According to police reports, the still unidentified assailants were on a blue Aura motorcycle and it was the backrider who fired shots at Ogario and Verdijo.

Ronda policeman SPO1 Leopoldo Gelardino said the victims had just come from the house of the mayor and were at the market to buy load for a cellular phone.

On their way back to the mayor’s house, the assailants’ came and stopped their motorcycle right in front of the victims, opened fire at the two and quickly left the scene towards barangay Ylaya.

Mayor Sia was in his house at the time, and the shooting took place some 300 meters only from the police station but policemen failed to catch up with the perpetrators.

Policemen found seven cartridges of a .45 caliber gun from the crime scene, and the .45 caliber pistol and its magazines of Ogario.

The police had so far believed that the attacker might have held a grudge against Ogario but they are also looking into an incident last September when Ogario reportedly mauled a man at the market.

“Gawas pa niini duna pa gyuy nasumbagan ug nakulatahan diha sa merkado publiko sa Ronda sa dihang nahimo na siyang bodyguard sa mayor,” SPO1 Gelardino said, adding that political motive is also being investigated.  — Edwin Ian Melecio/RAE