DAVAO CITY – Police have launched a massive manhunt for other members of the so-called “Balbacua” kidnap-for-ransom group believed to be behind the abduction last Sunday of the owner of a Flying V gasoline station in Barangay Panacan here.
The kidnap victim, Edgar Barroso, was rescued Tuesday night from a house in Spring Valley, Barangay Buhangin by joint elements of the Regional Special Operations Group, the Regional Mobile Group (RMG), the city police, and the Anti-Crime and Emergency Response Group.
Four suspected members of the Balbacua gang were killed in the rescue operation, including a certain PO2 Jaime Telebangko, an active RMG member deployed with the Philippine Center for Transnational Crime office here; one Jessie Muit, a former Army enlisted man, and Eden Cruzado, 46, a former employee of the Southern Philippines Development Authority based in Cotabato City.
Muit reportedly headed the Balbacua gang and was able to recruit policemen and soldiers to join his lawless activities.
“It is possible that there are still other members of the Balbacua kidnap-for-ransom group. We are looking for them,” Chief Superintendent Andres Caro II, Southern Mindanao police director, said.
Caro said the Balbacua gang was also behind a 2000 kidnapping case, for which Muit and some of his henchmen were arrested. But the case did not prosper as Muit and his group reportedly threatened their victims.
Mayor Rodrigo Duterte said the successful rescue of Barroso was one of the positive results of the city’s peace and order fund.
“This is where the peace and order fund of the city goes. We use it for purposes such as the rescue of Barroso,” he said.
What befell the four slain suspects, according to Duterte, should be enough warning to other criminal elements to get out of the city.
“They know the consequences if they commit their crime in the city. Criminals have no place in Davao City,” he said.
Caro commended the joint police team which rescued Barroso but said criminal elements in the police ranks are dealt with accordingly, referring to Telebangko.
“Rogue cops and hoodlums in uniforms should know better that we cannot tolerate their criminal activities,” he said.