‘Gun wielder’ in radioman’s slay falls

CAMP NAKAR, Lucena City — Police arrested the other day a videoke bar helper tagged by an eyewitness as the alleged gun wielder in the May 17 ambush-slaying of Lucena City broadcaster Apolinario Pobeda.

The arrest of Leonides Alcantara, 40, brought to three the number of suspects now under police custody. Five days after Pobeda’s killing, police nabbed brothers Eulogio and Eric Patulay.

Two other suspects, who reportedly acted as lookouts, are still being hunted down.

"We will not stop until we apprehend the two other suspects," said Chief Superintendent Jaime Caringal, police director of Calabarzon (Cavite-Laguna-Batangas-Rizal-Quezon).

Caringal said Alcantara was arrested at the Kambingan sa Larawan videoke bar and restaurant in Barangay Lawakan, Tayabas town on the strength of warrants for twin murders — one of them in 2000 — issued by the Sariaya and Lucena City Regional Trial Courts.

Alcantara did not resist when combined elements of Task Force Polly, Quezon police, National Bureau of Investigation and Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, acting on a tip by a concerned citizen, collared him.

Four sachets of suspected shabu were reportedly seized from him.

Alcantara was allegedly the one who pumped bullets into Pobeda’s body as he lay bloodied on the ground to make sure that they had successfully finished him off.

Pobeda was gunned down while crossing the railroad tracks here last May 17.

"This case is getting clearer when one of the eyewitnesses positively identified Alcantara as the gunman," said Senior Superintendent Federico Terte, Quezon police director and head of Task Force Polly.

"I hope this positive development would erase doubts of a whitewash in the case," Caringal said. "I won’t allow this to happen."

Terte replaced Senior Superintendent Ricardo Padilla who was earlier accused by certain sectors here of withholding evidence that would purportedly lead to the killing’s mastermind.

A police source said that prior to his arrest, Alcantara was often seen visiting the Patulay brothers at the provincial jail.

The Patulays have denied any involvement in the killing. They are now detained at Camp Vicente Lim in Calamba City, Laguna.

They have been identified as bodyguards of Lucena City Mayor Ramon Talaga. The mayor has vehemently denied any hand in the killing, saying his political rivals merely wanted to pin him down.

With Alcantara’s positive identification, Terte said he was included in the amended complaint for murder filed with the Lucena City prosecutor’s office the other day.

Alcantara is now detained at the CIDG office here for further interrogation and will soon be transferred to Camp Vicente Lim.

The preliminary investigation of the three arrested suspects is scheduled on June 23.