by Julius Mariveles and Mira Nicole Magbanua
BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental, Philippines – Camp Gerona will hold a separate probe on a fracas inside a videoke bar here that left an elite soldier dead and four others wounded.
Brigadier General Innocencio Pasaporte, who commands the 303rd Brigade, said their probe intends to know if there is a need to revise regulations for soldiers who are off duty.
Iwayan and his buddy, Joebert Villagracia, were off duty when the incident happened and had just withdrawn their military bonus pays, the police probe had revealed earlier.
They had a reunion of sorts with Joebert Visem, the owner of To-Lips Videoke Bar who was a classmate at Ranger School.
This developed as the police “picked up” three men, who are part of a group led by Ulyssis Carampatana, a bank accountant that started the bar fight.
“They feel afraid that someone would take revenge on them,” Major Joery Puerto told DNX as he refused to disclose the names of the three cohorts of Carampatana.
The police fetched the three from a place they specified and were brought to Station 8 where they are now in protective custody.
Carampatana, on the other hand, is under arrest at the hospital where he is being treated for his wounds.
Puerto also said Carampatana and his group, whom he had earlier described as made up of “thugs,” had already been inside the bar but when the call for closing time and the last round was made, they refused to stop drinking.
This led to a verbal tussle between Carampatana and Visem that led to a fracas and, eventually, the drawing out of guns by the accountant and soldier.
The shooting led to the death of Iwayan and the wounding of Villagracia and three others.
Station 8 is expected to charge Carampatana with homicide and fristrated homicide while his cohorts will be charged for obstruction of justice, Puerto said
