Cop still checking reports wanted fratman reported slain in Tacloban rumble

The Cebu City Police Office is now verifying reports that Cebu City's most wanted fratman was killed in fraternity violence in Tacloban City last week.

Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Branch chief Supt. Paul Labra II yesterday confirmed that they received and are checking on a report that Alpha Kappa Rho member Arestotle Aves, alias "Ares", was killed in a rumble in Tacloban City last Friday.

According to the information that reached Labra's desk, Aves was critically shot last Friday night and died last Saturday in a hospital.

But upon their verification with the police office there, there was no such incident reported to the office and no one named Aves was involved in any crime that night.

Labra believes that Aves may have used another name to cover his identity and make it hard for policemen to track him, or maybe a shooting incident that night was not reported to the police.

"Negative man daw, but I told them that Aves may have used another name to cover his identity," Labra told the press.

S/Insp. George Ylanan of the Vice Control Section, who received the information from a friend in Tacloban City, said that the police are checking all shooting incidents in the city last week as well as in neighboring towns.

Police have at least six warrants of arrest against Aves, all of them involving either murder or homicide. He was implicated in several fraternity-related shooting incidents in barangay Duljo-Fatima, Cebu City, against the rival group Tau Gamma Phi since 2004.

Tagged by the police as the "hitman" of the Akrho, he has a P200,000 reward for his capture posted by the Cebu City government, but the man has proved to be hard to catch.

Labra said they have reliable information that Aves is in Tacloban City after the Cebu City Police Office ordered a manhunt against him.

No relatives of Aves have so far visited the police to give or ask information about the alleged incident. - Edwin Ian Melecio