Kalinga Police Director James Dogao said that Fag-ay Walis, a member of the Basao tribe of Tinglayan, Kalinga has been arrested by police at a checkpoint in Tinglayan Nov. 18.
Dogao said that Walis has been brought to the Kalinga Provincial Police Office in Tabuk for safekeeping and while waiting for the Mountain Province Police to fetch him.
Walis and Cosme Guyang, another suspects in the stabbing to death of Percival Soliba, a Bontoc-Sagada mestizo, escaped from the Tinglayan Bureau of Jail Management and Penology detention cell in the third week of September following their surrender to the police.
Despite the arrest of Walis, the Kalinga police is still a long way from satisfying the demand of Mountain Province officials and citizens to arrest Kalingas wanted by Mountain Province courts.
Mountain Province Governor Maximo Dalog personally handed to Dogao, after the Regional Development Council (RDC) meeting in Tabuk on Nov. 17, a list of 21 criminal cases in which the suspects are believed to be hiding in Kalinga.
In the Soliba murder case, Dogao had told Mountain Province officials that the Kalinga police is giving time for negotiations but if this fails, then they will coordinate with the Army for a joint operation "because they (Basaos) are well armed."
Residents of Bontoc banished and banned the members of the Basao tribe from entering the town after municipal officials and tribal leaders of Tinglayan, Kalinga failed to deliver on their promise to surrender the two suspects in the killing of a Bontoc man, according to the Mountain Province Monitor, a publication of the provincial government.
