Crackdown on Tarlac gang nets ex-Scout Ranger’s cohort

TARLAC CITY — The police crackdown on the robbery-holdup gang led by a former Scout Ranger went on full swing with the arrest of one of its key members in a raid late last Friday.

Superintendent Tito Bayangos, city police chief, said his men nabbed Jeffrey Salenga, described as a "close associate" of suspected gang leader Romeo Mapatac.

Mapatac has become this city’s most wanted criminal after authorities tagged him as the brains behind the series of robberies and holdups in Tarlac in the last three months, which reportedly earned for the gang more than P3 million.

Mapatac, 30, was discharged from the military service after he was implicated in illegal activities, particularly gunrunning, while he was assigned in Mindanao.

Mapatac’s name first cropped up here sometime between 1997 and 1998 after he shot an Army major, surnamed Loong, who happened to be his military commander when he was still in the active service.

Mapatac was later accused of being behind the killing of one PO4 Orañes on board a passenger bus in the late 1990s.

Salenga was nabbed in Sitio Paldakan in Barangay Armenia here by virtue of an arrest warrant issued by Judge Bitty Viliran of the Regional Trial Court Branch 65.

He did not resist arrest. An unlicensed caliber .38 revolver was found in his possession.

Bayangos said Salenga admitted knowing Mapatac since they were classmates at the Tarlac National High School-Annex in Barangay San Miguel here. Mapatac is a native of Nueva Ecija, but grew up in Barangay San Miguel.

Bayangos said Salenga was identified by at least two holdup victims, both well-known businessmen in the province.

The driver of one of the businessmen identified Salenga as the one who hit him with a caliber .45 pistol on the nape when they were held up near the Plaza Luisita Complex of the Hacienda Luisita.

Bayangos is confident that Salenga’s arrest could lead to the arrest of Mapatac and other gang members, believed to be former henchmen of the late Col. Leodegario Adalem, who was himself discharged from the military for the 1980 murder of Ifugao tribal leader Macli-ing Dulag.

Adalem’s group was then implicated in several highway robberies, gun-for-hire activities, car thefts and illegal gambling not only in Tarlac but elsewhere in Central Luzon.

On April 11, 2000, Adalem, along with National Bureau of Intelligence (NBI) agent Tomas Pangilinan, was assassinated in broad daylight by New People’s Army hit men in front of the National Irrigation Administration office here.

Bayangos said Mapatac’s gang is also believed to be operating in some parts of Metro Manila.