WEARING body-worn cameras, police operatives arrested a suspect in killing the eldest son of Cagayan de Oro Mayor Rolando Uy in a secluded village in Lanao del Norte yesterday.
PNP Region 10 spokesperson Col. Michelle Olaivar, said the suspect is identified as Edgardo Gaabucayan, 59 years old, and said to be a former member of the New People’s Army Sparrow unit.
Olaivar said Gaabucayan was arrested in his house in Purok 6, Barangay Cabasagan, Lala town in Lanao del Norte.
On the One Mindanao Facebook page, a picture shows a plain-clothes policeman reading the arrest documents to seating Gaabucayan with a walking cane behind him.
Mayor Uy has yet to issue a statement on the arrest of Gaabucayan. He and his family offered a P12 million bounty for the arrest of the killers of his son, Roland Sherwin Uy, 45 years old, a councilor of Barangay Carmen, this city.
A lone gunman killed the younger Uy while resting in their family-owned quarry in Zone 1, Barangay Pagatpat in Cagayan de Oro last November 11, 2021.
The gunman also killed Uy’s employee, Samuel Pabalan.
Cagayan de Oro City Police Office spokesperson Major Evan Viñas said a police tracker team was able to trace the suspect to his house in Barangay Cabasagan.
Viñas said investigators could determine that the motive for killing Uy was a personal grudge.
“Samuel ‘Tatay’ Pabalan was merely a collateral victim,” Viñas said.
Viñas said Gaabucayan was arrested on the strength of a warrant issued by Judge Emmanuel Pasal of the Regional Trial Court Branch 38 in Cagayan de Oro City.
