An official of the National Bureau of Investigation in Region 7 yesterday recalled how he was threatened with charges by suspended Negros Oriental Representative Arnolfo Teves Jr. for raiding an e-sabong cockpit in Cebu last year.
Atty. Renan Oliva, current director of the NBI Cebu regional office, made the revelation on the third day of the hearing of the Senate Public Order and Dangerous Drugs committee chaired by Senator Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa.
Oliva told the committee that Teves threatened to file charges against NBI agents for the alleged theft of P7 million from an e-sabong cockpit in Minglanilla, Cebu.
The NBI official said he was surprised at the amount cited by the solon since what they turned over to the Court of First Instance was only P2.6 million, on top of livestreaming paraphernalia seized during the raid.
The NBI filed a case with the fiscal’s office against two operators and 37 personnel caught in the act of livestreaming the e-sabong.
Oliva said lawyer Noel Bugaling, NBI assistant regional director in Pampanga, called him up to say that Teves wanted to talk to him, assuring him that the congressman was a good man.
Given assurance
In the afternoon of 20 September 2022, Teves with an entourage went to Oliva’s Cebu office to tell him that he (Teves) was not connected to e-sabong operations because he had delegated it to his friends.
Oliva was reportedly given an assurance by Teves that he would be safe if he would report as “negative other operations against e-sabong.”
The NBI official said he laughed at this and dared Teves to file charges against him and his men, saying he refused to violate his oath of office.
He said the court dismissed the case filed against the e-sabong operation last February.
Five months after the raid, Oliva said he and his men were accused before the Office of the Ombudsman for the Visayas of irregularities in the service of the search warrant and the theft of P9 million.
The incident was disclosed by Pamplona Mayor Janice Degamo, the widow of slain Gov. Roel Degamo, who accused Teves of being involved in e-sabong, an online off-site gambling platform showing live cockfights streamed from an enclosed cockpit, and other illegal gambling activities in Negros Oriental.
Degamo said that when the NBI raided an e-sabong operation in Cebu City, Teves went to the city to meet with the NBI Region 7 chief, later identified as Oliva. Teves reportedly berated Oliva for stopping the e-sabong operations.
De la Rosa upon hearing this told the Philippine National Police officers present at the hearing not to allow themselves to be bullied by politicians but to arrest them for obstruction of justice.
He said that if he were in Oliva’s shoes, he would have told Teves, “How dare you to tell me that… it’s very bad.’’
De la Rosa saluted Oliva for not buckling down to Teves’ threats and for standing by his oath of office.
No to military control
Meanwhile, De la Rosa said there was no need to place Negros Oriental under military control, suggesting instead that fearless policemen should be assigned to the province.
“The way I see it, a military takeover is not needed. Just put in a provincial director who will implement martial law among the police in Negros Oriental. That will solve the problem,” De la Rosa said in a mix of Filipino and English.
He made the remarks after Senator Robin Padilla floated the idea of implementing martial law in the province to end the series of killings linked to Representative Teves and his family.
De la Rosa, a former Philippine National Police chief, noted that installing “good cops” in Negros Oriental would be enough to end the alleged reign of terror of the Teves clan.
“If the police show that they fear them and they can influence them, the prosecution will also fear them,” he said. “They would think that if the police with arms fear them, what more us who are unarmed.’”
Mayor Degamo asked the panel if the government could place the province under a “more relaxed” martial law.
“I think (it should be) maybe two steps lower from martial law,” Degamo said.
For his part, Siaton Mayor Fritz Diaz said the “Teves incident” killed the tourism industry in Negros Oriental.
“Negros Oriental is clamoring for peace and order,” Diaz said. “The people are asking for martial law.”
The local chief executive also claimed that resource persons invited to the hearing were “nothing compared to the people aggrieved by the Teves clan.”
Task Force proposed
In a related development, the Department of Justice bared its plan to create a task force that will focus on the political killings in the province.
According to Justice Undersecretary Jesse Andres, the DoJ is currently handling a total of 20 cases in relation to politically motivated killings in the province.
“Twenty active cases are now being pursued in court in relation to all the political killings in the province,” Andres said.
He noted that two cases had been dismissed while one was archived for failure to serve the warrant of arrest.