Raid on Honasan’s Iloilo ‘safehouse’ yields nothing

Elements of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) raided a supposed safehouse of fugitive former Sen. Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan in Iloilo last Tuesday, but yielded nothing.

Honasan has been on the run since he was accused of masterminding the Oakwood mutiny on July 27, 2003. The government has put up a P5-million reward for his arrest.

Senior Superintendent Benjamin de los Santos, chief of the CIDG-High Profile Case Division, said a joint team raided a house in Barangay Balantian, Palasan, Iloilo following intelligence reports that Honasan had been hiding there.

He said men of the CIDG field office in Region 6, the 608th Provincial Mobile Group and the local police, armed with a search warrant, swooped down on the house which Honasan’s former colleague in the military used to own.

Superintendent Rey Gumban, chief of the Eastern Visayas CIDG, said Honasan has reportedly been hiding in abandoned houses in Bicol and Western Visayas, particularly in Sorsogon and Iloilo.

"We have been receiving reports of his presence in (Palasan) so we decided to conduct the raid but it turned out negative," Gumban said.

He said the house in Barangay Balantian is located near a river, bolstering reports that Honasan was using a fastcraft.

Gumban said they learned that the late Col. Mariano Soriano, a friend of Honasan, formerly owned the house, and that a certain Zenaida Quatchon now owns the property.

Quatchon, however, denied that Honasan had visited her.

Last June 21, government forces swooped down on the former senator’s ancestral house in Bulan, Sorsogon, but also yielded nothing.

The Makati City regional trial court earlier issued arrest warrants for Honasan and his six co-accused, namely former Navy Capt. Felix Turingan, George Duldulao, Lina Reyes, retired Army Colonels Romeo Lazo and Virgilio Briones, and Ernesto Macahiya.

Lazo and Briones, both members of the Philippine Guardians Brotherhood Inc., were captured in separate police operations in Quezon City and Sta. Rosa, Laguna recently.