INAYAWAN FEUD TO REACH PDUT
AFTER VILLAGE CHIEF WRECKS FENCE
The village chief of Barangay Inayawan, Cebu City threatens Police Regional Office 7 Director Debold Sinas with a lawsuit for maligning his reputation. Sinas says he, too, will sue the barangay captain
Inayawan Barangay Captain Kirk Bryan Repollo could be the next local official to draw President Rodrigo Duterte’s ire.
Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 Director Debold Sinas said he will report to Duterte that Repollo on Tuesday, March 5, led the destruction of the fence on the lot where the police was set to build a new police station.
His action came a day after Sinas ordered police investigators to conduct a background check on Repollo following the arrest of Elymar Ancajas who yielded P122.4 million worth of “shabu” in his barangay.
Sinas said he will channel his report to the President through Interior Secretary Eduardo Año.
He had ordered the Pardo police chief to document what Repollo did to the fence.
The police official had met with the in-house state auditor of PRO 7 to discuss the violations that Repollo may have committed.
The auditor, Sinas said, suggested that the contractor of the police station file a criminal complaint against Repollo.
In an interview on Tuesday, March 5, Repollo said he destroyed the fence that enclosed the 500-square-meter compound because it was a nuisance and a traffic hazard.
He said that as barangay captain, he had police powers and he had the right to demolish the fence.
Private cars, public utility jeepneys, motorcycles, tricycles, delivery trucks and other vehicles often pass by the road near the lot, and the fence made the area a blind spot.
Tanods and residents destroyed the fence by detaching the galvanized iron sheets and pipes to eliminate the blind spot on the road.
The fence’s destruction went smoothly as there were no police officers at the site.
In April 2018, officials of PRO 7 and Cebu City Councilor Joel Garganera led the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the new police station on the lot donated by the barangay officials to the police.
Camp Crame had set aside P5 million for the project.
The project did not push through, though, after the incumbent barangay captain at the time was defeated by Repollo in the barangay elections in May.
Repollo and his councilors revoked the donation of the lot and offered another lot to PRO 7.
Repollo said he supports the construction of a new police station. He even offered the new three-story building beside the barangay gym as the new police station, but Sinas refused, he said.
The police general said he does not understand why Repollo refuses to let them build on the donated lot.
“It was donated and signed by all the barangay kagawad, and he’ll just unilaterally decide to transfer the police station? And you say all these things only now when the project has been awarded?” Sinas said.
Not a hazard
He argued that the compound where the new police station will be constructed is not a traffic hazard.
Politics, Sinas said, motivated Repollo to block the police’s project.
The village chief is an ally of Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, who often criticized the local police before Duterte threatened to slap him if they meet in person.
As to the background check on him, Repollo challenged Sinas to pursue it.
“Bring it on. We have nothing to hide. I’m not afraid of a background check because I’m a person of dignity, I’m morally upright and we earn a living through honest means,” Repollo said.
The village chief cried during the interview with reporters.
“I can’t help crying. I’m just furious because they are blaming us for their incompetence. If they did their intelligence work properly, they should have been able to detect the illegal drugs at the port of entry,” he said.
But Sinas said Repollo is placing the blame on the police to mask the village chief’s failure to monitor the drug personalities in Inayawan.
PRO 7 will file charges against Repollo because he allegedly refused to witness the inventory of the evidence seized from Ancajas.
Repollo sent a councilor to witness and sign the inventory sheet instead.
An emotional Repollo stressed he is not a drug protector, adding that he even had difficulty paying his credit card bills and a P200,000 loan from the Cebu CFI Community Cooperative.
He described Sinas’s actions as a form of harassment.
“Just because I’m BOPK and allied with Mayor Tommy Osmeña you would harass me like this. The pattern is becoming very clear. You did it first in Lusaran and then Calamba. Now it’s Inayawan?” he said.
The barangay captains of Lusaran and Calamba were arrested for illegal possession of firearms, but they were released after posting bail.
Meanwhile, Repollo said Garganera should prepare his counter-affidavit as he will file a libel complaint against the latter for his Facebook post.
He will also charge Sinas with oral defamation over the latter’s statements against him.
For his part, Garganera said he is not afraid to face Repollo’s complaint.
He said there was no malice in his Facebook post as he only expressed his opinion.
He wrote that there would be no illegal drug activities in Inayawan had the construction of the new police station pushed through.