DAVAO VIGILANTE GROUP MEMBER ARRESTED

DAVAO CITY - After more than a decade of killing spree, the shadowy
antidrug vigilante group, Davao Death Squad (DDS), would no longer be
shadowy anymore after an alleged vigilante was cornered and arrested on
Thursday night.

The alleged vigilante was Romeo Taysa, 38, of Matina Gravaham, a slum area
along the Bankerohan River.

Taysa, along with a companion who was able to escape, however, has shot
dead earlier a "dispatcher" of passenger vans in front of the City Overland
Transport Terminal in Ecoland, south of this city.

The victim was Hilario Daylo, 37, of barangay 76-A of Bolton Isla, also of
this city.

Col. Eduardo del Rosario, commander of the special antiterrorist unit of
the Army Task Force Davao, said a squad of Army operatives cornered Taysa
in an alley in one of the communities outside the terminal after task force
heard of the firing nearby its headquarters, located across the terminal.

Task force operatives fired a warning shot after spotting Taysa at an alley
outside the Justice Hall building across the terminal. But the latter shot
it out with the operatives before he gave up. He also surrendered a
.45-caliber pistol.

Earlier, at 9:40 p.m., Tayla and a companion allegedly killed Daylo at the
compound of the Davao Press Foundation Building in front of the Ecoland
terminal. Daylo was then beside his partner, Lucy Maalam.

Daylo was a suspected drug peddler and different monitoring placed him as
the 56th or the 70th victim of DDS killings.

Del Rosario said Taysa was already endorsed to the Davao City Police
Office. However, city police chief Senior Supt. Conrado Laza told reporters
that they could not present the suspect yet, saying that Taysa has not yet
divulged any information.

Maalam told a television crew, however, that she wanted the National Bureau
of Investigation to take custody of the suspect, saying she fears a whitewash.

The police has been widely believed to be directly involved in the unsolved
killings of persons allegedly involved in the illegal drug trade.

At least two policemen were pinpointed by witnesses as being seen with the
alleged DDS gunmen, with one of them seen driving the getaway motorcycle.
No case has been filed, however.

Mayor Rodrigo Duterte has also repeatedly belied accusation that "there is
a government-sponsored killing" in the city.