ANGELES CITY – The gun-toting village chief who was photographed in the middle of the road conducting traffic along the busy MacArthur Highway in Barangay Balibago here last Monday is not a heel but a hero.
He is Balibago Barangay Captain Tony Mamac who wasted no time in responding to a call from a concerned citizen on an ongoing highway robbery at the nearby Abacan Bridge where one of the victims, identified as Edley Bangit, was shot in the butt by the suspects on board two motorcycles.
Mamac said the robbery victims, Bangit and his wife Agnes, were on board a tricycle driven by one Jerome Gutierrez, 23, and were on their way to the Mabalacat Bus Terminal when the two motorcycles caught up with them at the Abacan Bridge. They had just withdrawn money from the BPI-Salapungan branch.
According to Mamac, his entire council was then in the middle of a small celebration in the village hall after 20 students of the barangay’s Alternative Learning System (ALS) graduated from high school.
Mamac said the ALS was established to help outof- school youths as well as those who still wanted to finish their secondary schooling despite their age. In fact, he said, the eldest of the graduates was already 67 years old.
Mamac said just as they finished eating, he got a call from a concerned citizen on the ongoing robbery. Mamac, who said his cellphone number is posted on tarpaulins found in conspicuous places in the village, immediately set up a checkpoint along the highway flagging down any motorcycle that passed.
Mamac said the caller was apparently witnessing the ongoing robbery as he was annotating what was happening to him until one of the suspects, who was wearing green long sleeves, shot the victim.
The suspects headed northbound where Mamac set up a checkpoint. But upon seeing the checkpoint, the suspects went their separate ways turning into side streets.
But Mamac said hot pursuit operations by the police resulted in the arrest of one of the suspects, identified as Jay- Ar Roylan Valdez who is allegedly a member of the “De la Cruz robbery hold-up gang.”
He is now detained at the PNP Station 4 located near the main gate of the Clark Freeport here. The victims lost their bag containing P220,000 cash and other valuables to the four suspects. Mamac said the victim was brought to the nearby AUF Medical Center using the barangay ambulance.
