Written By Ven Arigo
A former Catigbian vice mayor who is now a councilor shot dead one of the three notorious armed thieves from Carmen caught in the act of stealing his prized fighting cocks inside his residential compound early Monday dawn.
Councilor Virgilio Lorot had already lost about P150,000 worth of fighting cocks in past four thieveries believed done by the same group.
The awakened Lorot carefully got outside his house and tiptoed his way to the trio but one of them, Roy Umbahin, sensed his shadowy presence and attacked the councilor, said police chief Insp. Jovito Tampos.
The police official said instant instinct to defend and save himself from likely harm forced Lorot to shot the thief, who died on the spot, using his .38 caliber revolver.
Lorot voluntarily surrendered with his gun to the police.
The two other thieves, still both unidentified, fled aboard a motorcycle.
A 22.caliber revolver and a knife of the group were recovered by the police.
A fighting cock already hidden by Umbahin inside his jacket was hit by a bullet and died, too.
Umbahin, 21, of Poblacion Norte in Carmen town, was later identified and claimed by his parents, who borrowed a Carmen municipal vehicle to transport their son’s corpse back home.
His companions might have asked someone not a member of the group or a neighbor to tell the parents of Umbahin of the fate of their son as soon as they arrived in Carmen from Catigbian.
Umbahin’s group was suspected behind the strings of fighting cock thieveries in other Bohol towns.
The Catigbian police chief believed the group may have contacts to ready buyers outside Bohol for their stolen derby birds.
The thieves were sometimes seen together with scrap buyers operating from town to town.
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