ITOGON, Benguet – Two miners were arrested by community volunteers after illegally entering a private mine tunnel and illegally posessiong an unlicensed firearm and ammunitions at Antamok here around 2 am Thursday.
Superintendent Cherry Fajardo, public information officer of the Police Regional Office (PRO) in the Cordillera, identified the arrested trespassers as Hector Ponciano Goyo, 33, and Sony Tugade Abansi, 32, both miners, and residents of La Trinidad, Benguet.
Investigation disclosed that at around 1:00 AM of same date, the arrested suspects allegedly entered the private mine tunnel of Mr. Balangue without permission. At that juncture, civilian volunteers of said place guarded the portal until the suspects came out at about 2:10 AM of said date, and thereby confronted them.
However, when Abansi was about to be arrested, he brought out a handgun and pointed to Jaime Bakiadan, a civilian volunteer, but the latter grabbed and took the firearm from him during a scuffle.
Confiscated from Abansi was a caliber 9mm pistol (Norinco) loaded with one 1 magazine with six 6 live ammunition. Other items confiscated from the suspects were raw gold ores weighing more or less five 5 kilograms and two 2 NSS head lamps.
The suspects and the confiscated items from them were subsequently turned over to the Itogon Municipal Police Station for proper disposition and the filing of the appropriate charges against them before the Benguet provincial prosecutor’s office.
