Briones: Time’s up

OR IS it? I’m not very good in math so I may be wrong.

But I thought the deadline local authorities were given to solve the ambush on the Reluya couple was upon them. Or had already passed. Or is still approaching?

But that was PNP Director Oscar Albayalde’s ultimatum, right?

Two weeks he gave local authorities to present the mastermind and the assailants who riddled San Fernando Mayor Lakambini “Neneth” Reluya’s van with bullets last Jan. 22 in Talisay City.

The mayor survived the attack along with two others. But her husband, Panadtaran Barangay Captain and the town’s Association of Barangay Councils president Ricardo “Nonoy” Reluya Jr., wasn’t so lucky. And neither were too others.

Oh wait, didn’t Police Regional Office 7 Director Debold Sinas ask for an extension? He did, didn’t he?

Sinas, if I recall, said they needed more time because they didn’t want to arrest the wrong person.

“It’s hard to feel the pressure... We don’t want to make any mistakes. We also don’t want to arrest anyone just to comply with our deadline,” the police official had said.

Hmm. Have the police arrested the wrong person just to comply with a deadline?

Anyway, I don’t know if Albayalde got back to Sinas. But the latter has been building up the suspense with tidbits of information here and there.

Didn’t Sinas say a few days back that they already had a prime suspect? That they were on the heels of the assailants, but they couldn’t reveal any names just yet, as that might jeopardize their investigation?

Actually, what he said was he wanted to inform the families of the victims first. After all, he didn’t want them to find out about it on TV or on the radio or read about it in the newspaper. It was the fair thing to do, he said.

“Our approach is we have to talk to the Reluya family first because we’ll see, maybe they have something to add. Then that’s the time (we will reveal the names), whether or not they will join us in a press con. For now, we won’t reveal it yet because they might wonder why they weren’t given time even though they are the family,” Sinas had said.

Well, that was last Sunday. He did also say Mayor Reluya was out of town to attend her husband’s burial in Dipolog City. Maybe she hasn’t returned.

Of course, while I was writing this maybe the police official already made the big reveal and I didn’t know about it because it was my day off and I don’t make a habit of reading the news on my rest day. Which would mean that all of this was an exercise in futility.

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