Police chief's possible relief not due to gambling

Cebu Provincial Police Office director Sr. Supt. Carmelo Valmoria clarified that if ever Naga City chief of police Supt. Renato Malazarte will be relieved from his post it does not necessarily mean it is because of his alleged involvement in illegal gambling.

The Naga City police are now under investigation after Malazarte said that he learned of the presence of illegal gambling operation in his jurisdiction only recently. Malazarte said this to Valmoria last Tuesday after the latter told him that assorted gambling machines were seized from two barangays in Naga City.

Valmoria explained that they did not inform the Naga City police of the raids conducted in barangays Inayagan and Tuyan because the information CPPO received was confidential. Aside from the gambling machines, CPPO also arrested three men who were playing with the machines during the raid. Valmoria thanked the residents of Naga City for cooperating with CPPO in rounding up the video karera and “moli-moli” machines.

Valmoria also said Malazarte has been “overstaying” in his position. While a normal term for a police chief should only be two years, Malazarte is now on his seventh year as Naga chief of police.

Meanwhile, another video karera machine was confiscated yesterday in barangay Tangke 1, Naga City.

SPO1 Kenneth Abella of the Provincial Anti-illegal Drugs Special Operations Team said that a team went out to arrest three men with warrants but they were not home so they returned to the station.

They stopped to refill over in a gasoline station and a man approached them and told them there was a video karera machine in their place.

Policemen reported seeing youths running away from them as they approached. The machine was cemented to the ground and they had to use a crowbar to take it with them. — Christopher Gabriel Bonjoc/BRP (THE FREEMAN)