Toledo hostage victim amputated

CEBU, Philippines - It is a sad Christmas for one of the victims of the hostage in Toledo City last Thursday.

Araceli Plando, 24, mother of one of three-year old children, said doctors had to cut off the right arm of her three-year-old son after three major veins in his armpit were found to have been hacked.

Plando said she was told that even if doctors would try to reconnect the veins, the same would not be an assurance that the boy could use his arm again. He would most likely become paralytic, she was told.

“The doctor also said if we are to pursue the operation it would possibly end his life,” Plando said in Cebuano.

The boy was hurt when he was held captive by suspect Allan Bolo. The boy is currently at the Don Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center.

The operation reportedly lasted about two hours before doctors cut the boy’s arm off.

Plando said that aside from the slash on the boy’s right arm, another cut was found near his pulse. There are also two scrapes on his legs.

“Mura man to ug gisamaran sa tumoy sa sundang,” Plando said.

Last Thursday morning, police shot Bolo dead after he held three of his nephews hostage for six hours in Sitio Danawan, Barangay Biga, Toledo City.

Police were left without any other option but to shoot Bolo after he hurt one of the children with the bolo he was carrying.

Bolo reportedly got angry when his common-law wife left him last Tuesday. He reportedly had been talking to himself on Wednesday evening while honing his scythe and bolo.

It was at around 6:30 a.m. when he lured his three nephews, two aged three years old and one five years old, to his house by offering them boiled cassava.

Barangay Captain Marcelina Bolo, a relative of Allan, was summoned to the house to negotiate for the release of the children but after two hours they failed on their attempt.

Six policemen from the Toledo City went to the area and shortly thereafter, Ret. Police Sr. Supt. Leo Acebedo, security chief of Carmen Copper Corporation, also went to the area.

The hostage taker primarily demanded to see his common law wife, Arlene Omintado.

The police then immediately sent someone to Barangay Luray where Omintado reportedly went to, but failed to locate her for she already gone to Cebu City with their three-year-old daughter.

Until he demanded for a M-16 Armalite rifle, a caliber .45 pistol, and a hand grenade.

Police offered a M-16 rifle, whose firing pin has been removed, in order to lure Bolo to open the window and there as chance provided, police shot him on the left side of the head.

But before he was overpowered by the police, Bolo was able to hurt one of the three children while the two others were spared.

Bolo died at the Carmen Copper Hospital.

Victoria Plando, 35, alleged that jealousy was the reason why Bolo and Omintado had been recently arguing suspecting that his common-law wife was having an affair with another man.

Meanwhile, the mother of Bolo, Rosalina Bolo, 63, blamed the police on the death of his son. She said justice was no longer important for them since Bolo was already dead.

Rosalina added that if she was at the scene she could still save the life of his son as well as no children will get hurt.

“Kung didto pa ko mopatuo to nako,” she said added that what was important was the life of three victims were saved.

“Naluoy ko sa bata nga naputlan gyud diay sa iyang bukton mayo na lang,” Rosalina said.

Bolo’s relatives live in the mountain barangay of Vito, Minglanilla.

But Sr. Supt. Patrocinio Comendador, Cebu Provincial Police Office director once explained that they could no longer held on the situation and their only option was to kill Bolo.

“Wa nami mahimo kay determinado man siya mupatay nabalaka mi sa sitwasyon sa mga bata,” Comendador said.  (FREEMAN)