RTC Judge checks if detained mayor gets special treatment

BANGA, South Cotabato - Judge Lorenzo Balo of Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 26 conducted surprise visit Friday to police lock up cell here to verify reports Mayor Albert Palecia who was detained there was getting special treatment from his town's police officers. No special treatment so far, he was like any other detainees, Balo told DXOM-AM Radyo Bida Koronadal in Filipino.Balo said he earlier received reports that Mayor Palencia, arrested by police anti-drug unit, was getting special treatment from the town police officials.To personally see it for himself, Balo arrived unexpectedly, without prior notice to police officials in Barangay Poblacion and found the mayor detained with only an electric fan and a pillow in his lock-up cell.The mayor was alone in a detention cell separate from other detainees. sand//scontent.fmnl4-5.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14925412_1097962156977259_4159412402025116100_n.jpg?oh=fa945cddaaa4c337dff0e0555b93b54eandampoe=5888FD93 Palencia, who vehemently denied he was a drug lord and a gambling lord, was reading a tabloid when Balo showed up.Palencia's supporters, numbering about 50 people, have been milling the police office to express moral support.Mayor Pablo Matinong of Sto. Nino, South Cotabato and Tupi town Mayor Reynaldo Tamayo Jr, and South Cotabato League of Municipalities (LMP) president, visited Palencia at the PNP lock up cell to sympathize with the detained local executive.Balo's sala will hear the cases against Palencia that included illegal possession of ammunition and a grenade, found in his house and in his piggery, respectively when anti-drug cops served 18 warrants of arrest.Speaking to reporters, Supt. Maximo Sebastian, chief of PNP Regional Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Task Force (RAIDSOTF), believed the mayor was tipped off about the raid. He did not elaborate.At 3 a.m. Thursday, RAIDSOTF operatives raided Palencia's house and his piggery. I thank the police for raiding my house and my piggery because that proves I am not a drug lord as some sectors pictured me to be, Palencia said in the vernacular. He was in President Duterte's second batch of the country's narco-politicians, police said.Palencia has filed petition to post bail.