Negros Oriental police arrest hitman in Bais City

CEBU, Philippines – Police in Bais City, Negros Oriental arrested a suspected hitman in possession of a grenade, a caliber .45 pistol, and ammunition on Tuesday morning, August 15.

The Central Visayas (Region 7) Police Office said Allan Lagos Carcuevas was arrested in Panala-an village on a court warrant for illegal possession and sale of firearms, ammunition, and explosive devices.

The PNP regional office, in a press statement, alleged that Carcuevas was involved in the attempt on the life of a Negros Oriental politician, and several other shooting incidents in Mabinay, Bais, and other parts of the province.

The PNP did not give other details, but Carcuevas was named a suspect in the June 24, 2011 shooting of Victoriano Alabastro, a councilor of Bayawan City, according to the Dumaguete Metro Post.

Alabastro survived the attack, which occurred as he was leaving the Santa Catalina campus of the Negros Oriental State University (NORSU).

Suspended Negros Oriental 3rd District representative Arnie Teves, who faces terrorism charges linked to the March 2, 2023 murder of Governor Roel Degamo, was also named a suspect in the Alabastro case. He was then a provincial board member.

Police, however, dropped Carcuevas in the complaint, which prosecutors junked in 2012.

Police on July 31 killed another respondent in the Alabastro case, Alex Mayagma, in an encounter on a property owned by the Teves family.

The PNP described Mayagma as “the most notorious hitman in Central Visayas,” with pending warrants of arrest for four murder cases.

Courts had also issued two other warrants of arrest for Mayagma’s violation of the Commission on Elections gun ban.

Mayagma and Teves are co-respondents in the cases filed against Teves on August 11 for the murders of former Negros Oriental board member Miguel Dungog and three others in 2019.

Teves left the country shortly before the attack in Pamplona town, which killed Degamo and nine other residents of the province. He has denied involvement in the Degamo slay and refuses to return to the country, claiming personal safety concerns.

The House of Representatives has since suspended him. The latest from Congress is an ethics committee hearing on a recent video Teves posted, showing him in boxer shorts and undershirt, dancing and mocking the government’s “terrorist” designation.