January 15, 2001, Sun Star, Ex-mayor happy he got arrested; waited for cops,

CEBU CITY -- For years, he waited for the police to at least invite him for questioning, but they never did, former Surigao Del Norte town mayor Pepito Lumayag said.

So he went on with life, traveling wherever his "small-time businesses" would lead him.

Though it's been almost a decade since he was accused of masterminding at least two murders, his arrest last Saturday didn't come as a surprise.

In fact, he is "very happy" that the authorities finally got him, Lumayag said.

"Lipay kaayo ko ani kay makatubag na ko, mahuman na gyud ning tanan," Lumayag said yesterday inside the detention cell of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG). (I'm very happy that I've finally been arrested. I can now answer all the charges against me.)

He said it would be very awkward of him to be the one to knock on a policeman's door and ask what case he has to clear himself of.

The authorities knew long before his arrest that he was in Cebu city staying with his daughter and twin granddaughters in Banawa, Cebu city, he said.

He wondered why the police had to time his arrest with the election period.

A CIDG team arrested Lumayag using an arrest warrant issued last Jan. 5 by a Surigao city court.

He was arrested in Cebu city while stopping for a red light in an intersection in front of the Capitol building.

He said since he was tagged as the brains in the killing of a political opponent in 1992 and the kidnap-slay of businessman Henry Lumakang in 1993, he never went into hiding, let alone went out of the country.

After serving as town mayor of Tubod, Surigao del Norte, he would travel from different parts of the Visayas and Mindanao as a businessman.

He also denied being a member of the Cobra Gang, a splinter group of the Ozamis city-based Kuratong Baleleng Gang. He said he doesn't even know the existence of such group.

"No organized crime group could exist in a small and remote town like Tubod," he said.

On the kidnap-slay of businessman Henry Lumakang in Cebu city in 1993, Lumayag said he has documents to prove he was on an official trip to Manila that time. Besides, Lumayag added, what reason he had to kidnap and kill somebody whom he didn't even know?

With his arrest, Lumayag sees an end to all his woes.

Many of his townspeople still want him to serve, he added.