InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5
PUERTO PRINCESA CITY -- Another accomplice in the slaying of Palawan broadcast journalist Gerry Ortega was arrested early Sunday after weeks of surveillance that led police to the suspect's hideout in Barangay Caniogan, Pasig City.
Percibal Bacomo Lecias, 44, was nabbed by agents of a composite unit led by the Special Operations Group (SOG), an enforcement arm of the Puerto Princesa City government.
SOG head Randy Suelo said Lecias, a personal aide of former Palawan Governor Joel T. Reyes, the accused mastermind, was alleged to have produced the gun that was used by the gunman who stalked and killed Ortega.
Ortega was killed inside a used clothing store in this city last January 24, 2011.
Suelo said his group, backed up by the city PNP and CIDG-Palawan, was earlier expecting Lecias to surrender after his friend and another suspect, Arturo Regalado, surrendered last April 11.
But Lecias decided to back out from surrender and went into hiding, according to Suelo.
Both Lecias and Regalado were personal aides of former Governor Reyes, who along with his brother and Coron Mayor Mario Reyes, is still in hiding.
The Reyes brothers are the main subjects of a nationwide manhunt ordered by the Department of Interior and Local Government and the Department of Justice, with a P1.55-million bounty raised for their capture.
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