RUBEN Feliciano has not been named a suspect in the ambush of San Fernando Mayor Lakambini “Neneth” Reluya and company last January 22 but he is willing to be investigated to clear his name.
He again said that he was not behind the attack, that his “conscience is clear” and that the motive behind it was most likely a drug transaction gone wrong.
Accompanied by a blogger, Feliciano went to the Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO) headquarters in Cebu City Monday morning, February 4, and submitted himself to the police for an investigation.
His showing up at the CPPO came a day before the 14-day deadline for the special police investigation is due.
Presence of press
Feliciano invited the news media to be there at CPPO. A text message sent to reporters Sunday, February 3, asked for coverage of Feliciano’s CPPO visit during which he will ask for security detail because of threats on his life.
But at the CPPO, Feliciano said there was no threat to his life and that security detail would be unnecessary.
Feliciano, president of First Sangat SF International Port Corp., is running for mayor of San Fernando, Cebu against the incumbent, Neneth Reluya.
First Sangat has a pending multi-million-peso port project in Barangay Sangat in San Fernando. The project has failed to get approval from the mayor and the legislative council, which has been a source of friction between Feliciano and the Reluyas.
“Why link my name?”
But even with their differences, Feliciano said in an interview on Facebook Live with Superbalita Cebu Monday, February 4: “My conscience is clear. The truth will surface. If anything go (sic) wrong from the start, at the end of the day, it will always go wrong. The truth will surface kung sino sila. I’m here. Di ko nagtago because I have nothing to do with that incident. I voluntarily submit myself for investigation. Why link my name? I’m a law- abiding citizen, a God-fearing man but I hate drugs. I will kill them all.” The full interview with Feliciano is found in the Facebook page of Superbalita Cebu. Click here to read the full transcription.
Senior Superintendent Manuel Abrugena, CPPO chief, said in an interview with reporters that Feliciano and blogger Niel Enriquez gave police leads that can help in the investigation.
Enriquez had posted on Facebook that the Reluyas were involved in the drug trade. He did not issue a statement to journalists after he met with police investigators.
Abrugena did not label Feliciano and Enriquez as persons of interest, a term the local police, per Wikipedia, borrowed from U.S. law enforcement to identify someone involved in a criminal investigation who has not been arrested or accused of a crime.
Probe update
The ambush of the Reluyas merited the creation of a special investigation task group (SITG), a departure from the cases involving murder of people suspected to be involved in the drug trade. There has been no arrest of suspects nor has there been word about an investigation being conducted, or if one is being made, a progress report.
On Sunday, two days before deadline, Police Regional Office (PRO)-Central Visayas Director Debold Sinas told local journalists that the SITG has identified four suspects in the Reluya attack and that it has gathered evidence based on the reenactment of the ambush last January 25.
Two of the suspects have been identified while the identities of the other two are being verified, Sinas said.
Checkpoints set up in Cebu province last week yielded firearms that had since been subjected to ballistic tests.
Sinas said the SITG is bent on identifying the mastermind of the attack on the Reluyas and their companions.
On January 22, 2019, Mayor Reluya and her husband Nonoy, president of the Association of Barangay Councils (ABC) of San Fernando, and four other companions were ambushed by men in bullet-proof vests past 5 p.m., in heavy traffic, on the highway of Linao, Talisay City. Killed on the spot were Nonoy, the van driver and the town’s tourism officer. The mayor and two others escaped death but suffered injuries.
Accusations
Nonoy was buried on February 2, Saturday, in Dipolog City in Mindanao. Mayor Reluya has taken a month of leave from her public duties to recuperate.
In a written statement issued on January 29, she thanked her constituents for the show of support and authorities concerned for acting on the crime. She had told Sinas when he visited her in the hospital the day after the ambush that the attack was politically motivated.
Feliciano, addressing her directly in the Superbalita Cebu interview, said: “Mayor Reluya, please don’t blame me. I have nothing to do with the incident. My conscience is clear, Mayor Reluya. Wala ako dyan. Could you still remember that I even filed several cases against you in court? Because I choose to bring the matter to the court, because I believe in the rule of the law.”
Netizens who viewed Feliciano’s live interview were not sympathetic to the mayoralty candidate, who moved to San Fernando town from Mindanao only four years ago and is now asking for the townsfolk’s vote. (from AYB of Superbalita Cebu, MPS)