Police intelligence operatives are looking into the true role of the alleged survivor in an early-morning massacre of four suspected drug pushers in Ubay town who were killed last Monday due to their reported failure to remit sales from illegal drugs. Joseph “Jojo” Cerelegia, a companion of the four massacre victims, has earned the curiosity of Ubay Police Station and Bohol Police Provincial Office (BPPO) after he claimed that he survived an ambush at Barangay Humay-humay, Ubay town. Cerelegia claimed he was with the victims – identified by the police identified by the police as Ignacio Suarez Sereno, 19; Risa Pescadero, 29; Angel Ann Polentinos, 18; and Sammy Corona, 42 – on the hour the four were shot to death by still unidentified assailant(s).

The four victims sustained gunshot wounds all in the head which according to the police “does not portray the scenario of an ambush.” “They were all shot in the head. The victims were all shot at close range,” a police official at Camp Dagohoy said. Investigators said Cerelegia has admitted he owns the two motorcycles being used by the four massacre victims when they were gunned down. According to Police Senior Inspector George Caña, Ubay police station chief, Cerelegia was brought to the PNP station in Ubay after authorities were tipped off that Cerelegia was seeking police protection after allegedly surviving a massacre. “Cerelegia was brought to the station. He was not hand-cuffed. We only inquired from him what had actually happened since he was a companion of the victims,” Caña said in an interview.

“The police released Cerelegia shortly after 12 noon on the same day,” the police chief said. “We did not subject him into an intense interrogation.” Cana stressed that it was part of their job to question Cerelegia since the latter had claimed as “survivor” in the massacre. A police source said the Bohol PNP would gather all evidence that would unlock the mystery behind last Monday's massacre. The same source revealed that Cerelegia's name has appeared in the PNP drug watch-list. According to the same source, Cerelegia was once charged in the alleged murder of a Japanese national living in Ubay town about four years ago. The case had been dismissed after the victim's wife, a cousin of Cerelegia, refused to attend court hearings. Hours after the massacre, Cerelegia consented to an interview aired over DYRD's Inyong Alagad program.

During the radio interview, Cerelegia recounted that they had just left a friend's house in Barangay Humay-humay, Ubay town when they were gunned down by still unidentified assailants at around 4 a.m. last Monday. The Ubay resident claimed he had cheated death after he scampered away from the massacre scene as he heard a burst of gunfire. The spot where the four victims were shot to death is thick with wild grasses, and police said the crime scene is pitch-black from dusk to morning. Meanwhile, Police Senior Superintendent Dennis Palo Agustin, Bohol PNP director, told media here that based on their intelligence data, the four victims were allegedly involved in the peddling of illegal drugs, but lately, had changed their ways. “Those who cannot remit the proceeds of illegal drugs are liquidated by their master,” Agustin said. “This has happened before, but this time, this is already a massacre.”

“It only shows how serious the problem of illegal drugs in Bohol,” Agustin said. In a report at last month's Provincial Peace and Order Council (PPOC) meeting, Ubay was tagged by the council as “the no. 1 haven for illegal drugs in Bohol.” Ubay Mayor Galicano Atup, despite having been sought by media for reaction, has not issued a categorical statement on the PPOC report. Earlier, National Bureau of Investigation director lawyer Virgilio Mendez, a Boholano, has warned Bohol leaders that the problem on illegal drugs in Bohol is “so alarming already.” Police here believe that the four victims of last Monday's massacre, one of whom was a daughter of a retired police officer, were murdered due to an unsettled obligation with their supposed master in the illegal drug trade.