Lt. Col. Dario P. Sola, the current Deputy Provincial Director for Administration, has been designated as officer-in-charge of the PNP provincial office in addition to his other duties and responsibilities pending the designation of a provincial director of Catanduanes PPO.
This was disclosed by a key Camp Camacho official and one other source of the Tribune after news broke of Catanduanes Police Provincial Director PCol. Elmer R. Cereno’s relief from his post along with seven other officials as an offshoot of the shooting death of a detainee in Camarines Sur last Feb. 6, 2026.
Aside from PD Cereno, also relieved by higher headquarters were the chief of the Regional Investigation and Detective Management Division (RIDMD) of the Police Regional Office 5; Camarines Sur Police Provincial Office Director PCol. Virgilio O. Olalia Jr.; Del Gallego Municipal Police Station chief PCpt. Bernie B. Undecimo; San Miguel MPS officer-in-charge PCpt. Marlon M. Donguilab; the chief investigator and investigator-on-case of the Del Gallego MPS; and the warrant section chief of the San Miguel MPS.
The eight officials were relieved due to their administrative liability of late reporting of the incident to the regional headquarters but the PNP spokesman did not discount the possibility of their being reinstated to their posts once they are cleared.
If a new PD is designated to head the island’s police force, Cereno could join the list of PDs with the shortest stints at Camp Camacho.
It may be recalled that he took over as Catanduanes PD only in July last year, replacing then PD PCol. Edward D. Quijano who led the command for just 10 months. Quijano himself took the post of then PD PCol. Rayan Ador, who had lasted for six months.
On the other hand, the four officers involved in the shooting — a police corporal and three patrolmen from the San Miguel MPS — have been placed under restrictive custody.
They are facing a homicide complaint filed by the wife and children of the slain detainee before the local prosecutor in Camarines Sur and an administrative case before the National Police Commission in Bicol.
According to reports, the four personnel from San Miguel MPS were transporting two detainees – including murder suspect Michael Bailon Echague – from Pasig City to Catanduanes on February 6.
While on the way, the detainees requested to urinate, prompting the police escorts to stop the car along the Rolando Andaya Highway.
The handcuffed Echague allegedly elbowed a police officer, grabbed his rifle and pointed it at the escorts.
But the firearm did not discharge when the detainee pulled the trigger as it was allegedly not loaded.
The police officers pursued the fleeing Echague for about a kilometer until they reached a ravine where they allegedly saw the latter kneeling and aiming the gun at them.
The police officers reportedly fired their service pistols in self-defense, with the bullets hitting the detainee in the head, shoulder and chest.
Echague was wanted by the Regional Trial Court in Virac for the murder of high school senior Archie Tindugan Olapani, 21, in Pagsangahan, San Miguel on August 4, 2002.
Records show that the victim was having a drink with friends at the house of one Dominador Tuazon at about 1 A.M. that day when Randy Tindugan asked Archie to buy cigarettes for him at the nearby store of Leonor Chavez.
Olapani dutifully obliged but failed to return after several minutes, prompting Tindugan to verify his whereabouts.
But he was too late, as he found his friend already wounded, stabbed one in the left abdomen with a Batangas knife allegedly by Echague, then 23, single, a laborer from barangay Siay, for an unknown reason.
Olapani was rushed to the Eastern Bicol Medical Center (EBMC) for treatment but died while being operated on.
The suspect reportedly fled the following morning while the San Miguel police was preparing a murder charge against him.