2 E.Samar cops to be honored for heroism

TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines — The heroic deeds of two police officers in Eastern Samar who displayed acts of bravery and sacrificed their lives to ensure the credibility of the elections will be honored by the Police Regional Office-8.

Chief Supt. Elmer Soria, director of the PRO-8, assured the families, relatives and friends of PO1 Agerico Afable who sacrificed his life to ensure the integrity of the elections and SPO3 George Tiunayan who prevented escalation of poll violence perpretrated by two armed groups allegedly supporting two opposing candidates.

Afable was killed by unidentified armed men while securing the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines at Brgy. Calingatngan in Borongan City of Eastern Samar.

Tiunayan, for his part, was manning a Security Assistance Desk at a polling center in Mantang Elementary School, five kilometers away from the town of Taft, also in Eastern Samar, when he rushed to the scene of commotion a few minutes before the opening of the polling precincts.

It was learned that, although outnumbered by bonnet-clad men of the two armed groups, Tiunayan fired a warning shot into the air causing the armed men to scamper in different directions, thus stopping the volatile situation at the time.

“The courage shown by SPO3 Tiunayan and the heroic act of PO1 Afable have proven once again that police was there to protect the sanctity of the ballots even if it will cost their lives,” Soria said, adding that these incidents were isolated cases and did not affect the conduct of the election in Eastern Visayas as a whole.---(FREEMAN)