Tarlac City dads offer P200,000 reward for ex-soldier

TARLAC CITY — The city government here has put up a P200,000-reward for the capture of discharged Army trooper Romeo Mapatac, suspected leader of a notorious robbery-holdup gang, which authorities said is also responsible for the proliferation of illegal drugs in the community.

City police chief Superintendent Tito Bayangos, revealed that in a meeting late Thursday with law enforcers here, Mayor Genaro Mendoza agreed to set aside the fund from the local government unit’s coffers just to neutralize the alleged criminal leader.

Bayangos said that Councilor Joji David, chair of the city council’s committee on peace and order, concurred with the suggestion.

Mapatac has become the city’s most wanted man after he and his alleged gang members have been tagged as the group behind the series of holdups and robberies here. Mapatac and his men had purportedly earned as much as P3 million in the series of heists in the past three months.

Lawmen have already arrested two of the suspect’s alleged cohorts — Jeffrey Salenga, who was Mapatac’s alleged closest aide, and one Ariel Timpug, who like the alleged gang leader, was dismissed from the military service for illegal activities.

But Salenga and Timpug were able to post bail since the charges filed against them for illegal possession of firearms and ammunition and a small amount of metamphetamine hydrochloride (shabu) were bailable offenses.

Nonetheless, Bayangos said that the shabu confiscated from the suspects pointed to the possibility that Mapatac’s gang is now also into illegal drug trading in this city and probably in neighboring provinces.

Aside from allegedly being the mastermind behind the string of robberies and holdups in this city, Bayangos pointed out that Mapatac is also facing frustrated murder and murder charges for attempting to kill one Army Maj. Loong and for the assassination of PO4 Orañes in the late 1990s.

Maj. Loong is said to be Mapatac’s erstwhile commanding officer in Mindanao before the suspect was discharged from the military service for alleged gun-running activities.

The notorious criminal group, allegedly involved in highway robbery, car theft, gunrunning, gun-for-hire and illegal gambling activities, is composed of remnants of the syndicate that was formerly led by the late former Army Col. Leodegario Adalem.

In April 2000, however, assassins of the communist-led New People’s Army (NPA) felled Adalem, together with National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agent Tomas Pangilinan, in broad daylight here, as Maoist rebels held him responsible for the 1980 murder of Ifugao tribal leader, Macli-ing Dulag.