Gapan police chief loses post over rash of killings

GAPAN CITY , Philippines  â€“ Barely a week after the provincial board summoned him for the spate of killings here, the city police chief found himself relieved from his post.            

Senior Superintendent Crizaldo Nieves, provincial police director, has relieved Superintendent Bernard Orig, who occupied the post for only two months, and replaced him with Superintendent Dionisio Ynigo. Nieves said Orig’s relief was a command decision based on the request of the city government.

He said the selection of Ynigo was mandated under Republic Act 6975, also known as the PNP Law, wherein the sitting mayor may choose from five nominees.

Ynigo was a former police station commander during the administration of Mayor Maricel Natividad’s father, former three-term mayor Ernesto Natividad.

Orig’s relief came amid the spate of killings in this city, which prompted the provincial board to summon him to shed light on the incidents.

Earlier, Vice Gov. Jose Gay Padiernos, who hails from this city, expressed alarm over the crime wave, saying a “reign of terror” prevails here.

He said the peace and order condition in this city is chaotic. “It’s no joke. I thought it was just one or two killings but it seems there is now a pattern. It’s my moral obligation to find out the situation,” he said.

Over the past two months, the Gapan police recorded four high-profile killings, including the ambush attempt on Emerson Pascual where four people, including a rookie policeman, were killed, and the gun attack on councilor Danilo de Guzman last Aug. 31.

Aside from the four attacks, the city election officer was also wounded in an ambush staged by motorcycle-riding gunmen in Jaen town on Aug. 23. 

Orig said the string of killings did not mean a general breakdown of peace and order in the city. “There is no reign of terror in Gapan, that I assure you,” he said.

He said the attack on Pascual was a simple case of “history repeating itself,” apparently referring to the raid on a cockpit owned by the Pascuals in 2006 which led to the killing of Pascual’s brothers Erickson and Ebertson.

The elder Natividad and 17 others were charged for the 2006 attack. He was arrested while undergoing dialysis in Metro Manila a few months before the May 2013 elections.