2 brods held for radioman’s slay

CAMP NAKAR, Lucena City — A special task force created to investigate the May 17 killing of local broadcaster Apolinario "Poly" Pobeda arrested two suspects — both brothers — yesterday morning.

Superintendent Danny Ramon Sionco, Lucena City police chief, said witnesses have positively identified brothers Eulogio and Eric Patulay as the gunmen.

They were nabbed in a safehouse at the boundary of Barangay Del Carmen and Sta. Catalina, Pagbilao, both in Quezon. Two guns — a caliber .45 and a 9mm — were seized from them.

Two other men, Domingo and Manolito de la Cruz, were held for questioning but were subsequently released after it turned out that they merely own the house the Patulay brothers are renting.

The Patulays were said to be close-in bodyguards of Lucena councilor Romano Talaga, son of Mayor Ramon Talaga.

The mayor denied this. He admitted though that the two brothers are their supporters.

"Okay nga na may inaresto ang pulis para kung totoo nga na sila ang killers, patugain nila kung sino ang mastermind (It’s good that the police have made an arrest. If the Patulays are indeed the killers, they should tell who the mastermind is)," the mayor added.

Mayor Talaga has been tagged in Pobeda’s killing. He has repeatedly belied this, saying that his political enemies could have done it so he could be blamed.

Pobeda, a hard-hitting commentator, was on his way to radio station dwTI-AM on board a motorcycle when two men riding tandem in another motorcycle shot him seven times — five in the head and two in the body — with a caliber .45 pistol.

Pobeda was crossing the railroad tracks in Barangay Cotta here when he was attacked.

The Task Force Poly is still hunting down a third suspect believed to have fled to Laguna.

Meanwhile, in Iligan City, the family of slain broadcaster Edgar Damalerio marked his first death anniversary the other day with anger and frustration over the continued failure of law enforcement agencies to arrest the suspected gunman.

Gemma Damalerio, the slain journalist’s wife, said, "What frustrates our family as we mark my husband’s death is that PO1 Guillermo Wapile, the suspected gunman who was already under police custody and confined at Camp Abelon in Pagadian City, ‘disappeared.’"

"The police could not arrest him even if he could be seen around the city every week," she added. — With Lino de la Cruz