2 soldiers, cop, 2 civilian cohorts face gun theft charges

COTABATO CITY --- The police shall file before weekend criminal cases versus five gunrunners, among them a policeman and two soldiers, caught in the act selling government firearms Tuesday in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao.

Eliver Jay Angot Soverano, Gleen Aragones Sangyao, Reynaldo Dechavez Dichosa, Morjan Tumindig and Adams Tumindig are now clamped down in a detention facility of the Datu Odin Sinsuat municipal police.

"A case is now being prepared against them," Brig. Gen. Eden Ugale, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, said Wednesday. 

Probers have confirmed that Soverano is a policeman while his two accomplices, Sangyao and Dichosa are both soldiers.

Ugale said the group was entrapped in Barangay Tamontaka, Datu Odin Sinsuat by personnel of the municipal police led by Lt. Col. Romel Dela Vega and other units under the Maguindanao provincial police office.

The sting that resulted in the arrest of the five suspects was laid with the help of intelligence agents from the Army’s 6^th Infantry Division and local leaders aware of their gunrunning activities.

Seized from the suspects were three 5.56 caliber assault rifles, an M4 Carbine, two .45 caliber pistols, two Glock 9 millimeter pistols and a Zigana PX-9 pistol, all marked “government property,” identical with service firearms of soldiers and police personnel.

“The Datu Odin Sinsuat Municipal Police will build a strong case against them,” Ugale said Wednesday.

Ugale said credit for the arrest of Soverano, Sangyao, Dichosa and the Tumindigs, both residents of Barangay Tamontaka, should go to informants privy to their clandestine selling of government firearms.

Investigators placed at no less than P600,000 the value of the firearms confiscated from them.