Thousands give slain Cebu drug pusher a hero’s burial

CEBU CITY — It was raining Saturday afternoon when slain suspected big-time drug pusher Joel Nodalo was laid to rest at the Carreta cemetery, but this did not deter thousands who attended the funeral of the man they called their hero.

The mourners came from Barangays Ermita, Pasil and Tejero in Cebu City, from Lapu-Lapu City and even from Banakon Island in Bohol.

For them, Nodalo was a hero who helped them in his own simple ways in their times of need, and they even assailed the media for painting a bad picture of Nodalo, whom they called "Tongol."

Augustinian priest Rev. Fr. Domingo Saladaga, who celebrated the requiem Mass at the Mt. Carmel Church, said the turnout of mourners was as huge as those who attend Sunday Masses.

From that church in Magallanes, the funeral cortege, complete with a drum-and-bugle corps playing the song Hindi Kita Malilimutan, reached the cemetery along M.J. Cuenco Avenue where Nodalo, whose Christian name was Daniel, was buried in a grave beside that of his father-in-law.

Before that, a tambalan was called to do a ritual of turning Nodalo’s coffin three times. The old men around later explained that it was meant to bother the conscience of his killer.

No one among Nodalo’s immediate family members granted an interview to reporters, saying there was nothing to say because there was no positive development in the case so far.

Last June 22, a wig-wearing man gunned down Nodalo while he was watching a derby in a cockpit in Barangay Asinan in Buenavista, Bohol.

Nodalo died on the spot with multiple gunshot wounds, while the gunman escaped. Spent shells of caliber .45 bullets were found at the scene.

An hour after the killing, Nodalo’s wife, Janice, told radio station dySS in an interview that she suspected that SPO1 Adonis Dumpit was the gunman, saying that it was the policeman’s voice which answered Nodalo’s cellphone when she made a call to that number.

The next day, police intelligence chief Paul Labra was tagged as the man who had ordered Nodalo’s killing.

Dumpit has denied the accusations, saying he was in Cebu when Nodalo was gunned down.

Labra also denied he had anything to do with the killing, and threatened to file charges against those who malign his name.

Nodalo gained notoriety in 2001 when he was linked to a series of bank robberies in the city. He was tagged as the local man of an Ozamiz City-based robbery gang.

Nodalo had denied involvement in the heists, but he admitted being a drug pusher.

He was arrested in Escalante, Negros Occidental in 2002, but a few months later, he bolted the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center here, along with Riel Bautista, another notorious robbery suspect. — Freeman News Service