Lapu-Lapu cops to officials: Report death threats
Authorities in Lapu-Lapu City advised those who intend to run in the upcoming 2016 elections to tip the police if they have received threats to their lives.
Police Senior Superintendent Armando Radoc, in-charge of the LapuLapu City Police Office, said he gave directives to the police chiefs of the city's five stations to contact barangay officials within their jurisdictions and determine if they have received terror or death threats recently.
"I already instructed my chief of operations directing the five chiefs of police sa atong five stations sa city to contact their respective barangay officials covered sa ilahang jurisdiction," Radoc said.
Radoc learned that the 55-year-old barangay captain of Agus, LapuLapu City, Jovencio Lauron, had received death threats two weeks earlier before he was slain in Clarin town in Bohol on the way to attending a fiesta in Sagbayan.
Police also said that back in Lauron's office in Barangay Agus, a separate unidentified "hitman" reportedly attempted to kill him as well.
According to police investigation, Lauron did not report these death threats to the police.
In defense, Lauron's daughter, lawyer Salud Beverly Lauron, told reporters that her father did not file a police blotter because he did not want the police to give him a "special treatment."
Police are still on the process of determining the captain's killers, initially looking at politics and land dispute as leads into their investigation.
To prevent similar incidents, Radoc said police chiefs in every station should coordinate with barangay officials.
"They (police) should ask them, and unahon ang mga barangay captain, then the barangay councilors," he said. — Christell Fatima M. Tudtud