BY ADRIAN P. NEMES III
“If they think that I am useless, I am volunteering myself to be relieved anytime,” city police director Manuel Placido said amid criticisms that Bacolod has become a “killing capital” due to a spate of shooting incidents lately.
Placido said that if these critics think Bacolod is the most chaotic city, then he has no business staying, but he hopes they will be objective and look at the incidents from the perspective of whether Bacolod is the only city in the province of Negros Occidental where shootings occurred.
Under his term, he said, no barangay captain or policeman was killed, unlike in other areas.
Placido stressed that Bacolod, for him, is second to Palawan in terms of peace and order, adding that he believes that some of these victims were killed by their personal enemies.
Former drug convict Roue Senador, 52, of Purok Malapitan in Brgy. Alijis was shot dead on board his motorcycle along Rosario Street on May 31, and the following day, the bullet-riddled bodies of real estate broker Dexter Bryan Ursos, 41, of 17th Street, and businessman Fernando Mahipos, 39, of Purok Boulevard, Brgy. 14, were found in the former’s car at the Bacolod reclamation area.
Both cases are still under investigation and no suspects have been identified yet, as of press time. Placido said he directed the commanders of police stations handling these cases to investigate the circumstances surrounding the incidents thoroughly and dig deeper on why they were killed.*
