HOURS after the ambulance of the San Fernando Municipal Government was ambushed in the City of Naga on Monday night, May 6, allegations that it was carrying vote-buying paraphernalia of the Reluya camp surfaced.
These were denied by San Fernando vice mayoral candidate Ricci Reluya.
Most of the allegations were made by critics of his mother, reelectionist San Fernando Mayor Lakambini Reluya.
Dr. Alfredo Manugas, San Fernando health officer, also supported the younger Reluya's denial, adding that four town workers on board the ambulance had just come from a public hospital in Cebu City to deliver a patient.
Around 10 p.m. on Monday, driver Armand Navarro, 37, and fellow municipal workers Harold Ballermo, 37; Janice Rosal, 35; and Rosalie Cajes, 37, were on their way back to San Fernando when the ambulance they were riding was suddenly peppered with bullets by men on board a white van in Barangay Inoburan in the City of Naga.
Based on the police report, Navarro was able to make a quick u-turn then sped off toward the city proper.
The ambulance was hit on both sides and lost two of its right wheels from the encounter.
Navarro managed to drive to the Enan Chiong Activity Center in Barangay South Poblacion even though he was shot in the left leg.
Police immediately brought them to the station, while Navarro was taken to a nearby hospital. His companions were unharmed.
Members of the media tried to ask Police Lt. Col. Jason Villamater, head of the City of Naga Police Station, for more details on the incident, but he declined to be interviewed.
Police Col. Manuel Abrugena, Cebu Provincial Police Office director, who went to Naga after the incident, also declined to issue a statement.
In a text message, Police Regional Office 7 Director Debold Sinas said he directed Abrugena to conduct more checkpoints not only on the main highway, but also on roads leading to mountain barangays in the lead-up to the midterms elections on Monday, May 13.
He assured that Naga police are investigating the ambush.
But on social media, supporters of San Fernando mayoral candidate Ruben Feliciano are saying that the ambulance was carrying money to buy votes.
Feliciano's running mate is Antonio Canoy, the town's former mayor.
In the Facebook page of a certain MugEstorya KitagPolitika sa San Fernando, the group claims the ambulance passengers were about to distribute money when they were ambushed.
"Resulta na ambulansya diay gigamit sa sinobre ni Neneth Reluya. Ge ambushan sa Naga (Its becoming clear. Ambulance used by Neneth Reluya's camp to distribute envelopes of cash, ambushed in Naga)," the account said, on a post dated May 6 at 10:59 p.m. or just an hour after ambush occurred.
Around midnight, on the same Facebook page, the group posted in Cebuano: “I smell a disqualification case for vote buying."
Meanwhile, the younger Reluya believed the persons who ambushed and killed his father, the late Association of Barangay Councils president Ricardo "Nonoy" Reluya Jr., were behind the strafing of the town's ambulance.
The younger Reluya urged Naga police to give a statement on the investigation and clear the town's personnel of the allegation.
He also believed the incident was the first of many in the lead-up to May 13.
"If this group is willing to shoot ambulances to prove their point, then they are really desperate," the younger Reluya said. (JKV)