Cong. Chiquiting Sagarbarria has shrugged off as a politically-motivated fabrication a report that his son, Gov. Chaco Sagarbarria, mauled a burglar who stole his cell phone.
The story was circulated Tuesday by social media pages supportive of Sagarbarria’s political opponents, based on their interview with the self-confessed burglar, Elvis Umbac, an estranged husband of the Governor’s house staff in his house in Valencia.
Umbac admitted during an interview uploaded on social media that he climbed the wall of Sagarbarria’s home on Oct. 31, passed undetected through the window at the back of the house, and stole the cellphone.
“I thought it was my wife’s cellphone because they were beside each other, and they had the same color,” he said in the vernacular.
He then placed the cellphone in his wife’s handbag which contained her purse, and left for his work in a construction site.
Umbac told his interviewers that his wife soon arrived at his workplace, accompanied by the Governor’s bodyguards, and told him, “Gang, you got the Governor’s cellphone, not mine!”
“I told her the cellphone is in the bag, and I brought it out. The bodyguards called Chaco, and told him his cellphone has been found,” Umbac recounted.
“Soon, Chaco arrived, and asked, ‘Richelle, is this your husband?’ He then slapped me. He told me, ‘If you do this again, I will shoot you.’ His bodyguards then came up from behind me, and punched me. They warned me that if they lose their jobs, they would hunt me down.”
He named another person who slapped him as Janjan Legaspi, a driver of Chaco.
By 4 p.m. that day, the bodyguards returned, and took Umbac to the Valencia Police Station where he signed the police blotter that he was being released.
Umbac said he also reported the incident to the Sibulan Police but did not include Chaco’s name in his statement in the police blotter.
Umbac also said he has engaged Atty. Froilan Pinili as his lawyer, and presented the lawyer’s draft of his affidavit.
He said he was with the 703rd Army Reserve Battalion, and is a member of the Guardians.
However, Lt. Col. Jess Cañete, Battalion commander of Army Reservists in Negros Oriental, clarified on social media that he had removed Umbac from the 703rd Reservist Battalion because of “conduct unbecoming of a Reservist”, being a habitual drunkard, vulgar, uncouth, among others.
In a separate interview, Richelle Umbac, wife of Elvis, belied her estranged husband’s account that he was slapped by the Governor. “Kanang iyang giingon nga gidapatan siya ni Gov, wala! kay diha gyud ko unya saksi gyud ko nga wala siya bun-oga. (His statement that he was slapped by the Governor is not true because I was there, and I am a witness that he was not harmed [by the Governor]).
“In a fit of anger, the Governor scolded him, and [my husband] cried,” she said.
Richelle also reported that she discovered that her husband took all her money from her bag. “I wanted to punch him out of anger.”
She said Elvis would threaten her with a knife everyday, saying he would kill her. She said he would always throw stones on their roof. “Among atop napuno na og bato. Kada adlaw gyud na. (Our roof is filled with stones, and that happens every day.)
When asked if her husband was taking drugs, Richelle admitted that indeed, Elvis was taking drugs, possibly everyday because he keeps harassing her every day.
Cong. Chiquiting Sagarbarria said Governor Chaco is a very gentle person. “He doesn’t know how to throw a punch,” Chiquiting said of his son Chaco.
“Do you think our maids will stay with us for 35 years if we hurt them? They will not last [that long with us]. Some of our maids even stay with us until they die,” he said.
“That issue is fabricated. It’s very clear. They try to rub their character on someone else. It’s politically- motivated.” (AP)
