By Glazyl Y. Masculino
BACOLOD City – Firearms and ammunition were recovered during a raid on the sugar mill of former Bayawan City Mayor Pryde Henry Teves in a compound at Barangay Caranoche, Sta. Catalina, Negros Oriental yesterday.
In a media interview, Police Colonel Thomas Valmonte, chief legal division of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), said that they were armed with a search warrant for illegal possession of firearms issued by an executive judge in Mandaue City, Cebu against Teves when they raided the compound.
Valmonte said several firearms were enumerated in the search warrant which was released on March 23.
Not less than 10 unlicensed firearms and some ammunition were recovered during the raid.
He said that they only acted on the information they received that there were some firearms reportedly kept at the said place.
Three persons with firearms were intercepted during the raid. One of them voluntarily surrendered his firearm to the authorities.
He said there was no resistance during their operation which was in coordination with the Army’s 11th Infantry Battalion (IB) and the PNP-Special Action Force (SAF).
Teves is the brother of Negros Oriental third district Rep. Arnolfo “Arnie” Teves Jr., who was tagged as the alleged mastermind in the killing of Governor Roel Ragay Degamo, and eight others in Pamplona town on March 4.
Degamo unseated the former local chief executive in the gubernatorial post in the May 2022 elections after the Commission on Elections (Comelec) credited to the slain governor the votes of a nuisance candidate named “Ruel Degamo.”
The former mayor was not in the compound when the raid was conducted.
Valmonte said that the raid was not related to Degamo’s assassination, but pursuant to the flagship program of the CIDG dubbed “Oplan Paglalansag” which is their campaign against loose firearms.
On March 10, some houses and property of Rep. Teves in the province were also raided by CIDG, wherein some firearms and ammunition were also recovered.
Rep. Teves has earlier denied the allegations linking him to the said killing.
