BY GILBERT P. BAYORAN
Three fugitives, including a senior citizen, who are facing rape and murder cases, were accounted for in separate manhunt operations in Negros Occidental on Wednesday.
Ranny Panaligan, of Brgy. Alangilan in Bacolod City, one of the two suspects in the killing of his grandfather and raping his aunt on July 13, 2014, was apprehended by Sipalay City policemen and 2nd Provincial Mobile Force Company, as well as intelligence operatives of the Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office, by virtue of arrest warrants issued by Judge Edwin Gomez.
Lt. Col. Joem Malong, spokesperson of the Police Regional Office 6, said that Panaligan, 31, who ranked number four in the top 10 most wanted persons’ list of Negros Occidental, was denied bail by Gomez.
Meanwhile, one of the five suspects involved in a gang rape on June 2020 at an abandoned warehouse in Hacienda Binitin, Brgy. Blumentritt, Murcia, Negros Occidental was also nabbed by the police Wednesday in the place.
Malong identified the apprehended suspect as Noriel Martinez, 18, who has a pending arrest warrant for five counts of rape, issued by Bacolod Regional Trial Court Branch 41 Judge Phoebe Gargantiel-Balbin.
Martinez, one of the top 10 most wanted persons in Murcia, was also denied bail.
Policemen also apprehended Leopoldo Villarosa, 64, by virtue of an arrest warrant issued by La Carlota RTC Judge Reynaldo Alon on June 23, 2009, for the crime of rape, in Brgy. Talaptap, La Castellana. Malong reported that Villarosa was also denied bail by Alon.*
