Tacloban PNP to witnesses: Help solve killings in the city

TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines — The Tacloban City Police Office is still unable to solve the killings of seven persons whose deaths were publicly touted as drug-related and deemed extrajudicial killings.

Senior Inspector Jessica Ortega, spokesperson of the TCPO, said the police are in need of the cooperation of witnesses to provide leads into the identities of the perpetrators and the eventual resolution of the crimes.

To this date, the TCPO investigation division is trying to get statements from people who might be within the areas where the bodies of summary execution victims were found, Ortega said.

In dawn of July 29 this year, three bloodied bodies — a male in the front seat and two females at the back seat — were found in a parked sedan by the apron of the DZR Airport in Tacloban.

Attached to the body of the male victim — identified as Jayson Boclatan — was a white cardboard with a handwritten note: “Drug pusher ako. Lord patawad.” The two females were identified as Rowena Rosales, 42, and Sherry Mae Mantile, 22. All three sustained fatal gunshot wounds.

Late evening on July 28 at a gassy portion of the Tacloban By-Pass Road at Barangay Apitong, a dead man, later identified as Michael Cabaguing, was found sprawling on the ground with four gunshot wounds on his back and one on his forehead. Beside his body was also a note, stating, “Drug pusher ako. Lord patawad.”

At around 2 p.m. on August 23, lawyer Rolando Bato Jr., legal counsel of alleged Visayas drug lord Rolando “Kerwin” Espinosa Jr. and father Rolando Sr. mayor of Albuera town in Leyte, was gunned to death by unidentified assailants in a residential area at Barangay Lumbang in Tacloban.

The lawyer was killed at the driver seat of his pick-up, and his companion, 15-year-old high school student Angelica Bonita, was also shot dead in the passenger seat beside him.

Ortega also named a certain William Canaya, the 7th victim of summary killings that the TCPO investigators are still trying to solve to this day.

“The investigators of TCPO Stations 1 and 2 keep on visiting the crime scenes to monitor the people within the areas, hoping that there will be people who will support and give name of those who witnessed the incidents,” she said.

Ortega said it will be very difficult to build cases against perpetrators if their identities remain undetermined, although the TCPO considered for now that the killings were done by vigilantes. To expedite the resolution of these incidents leading to the arrests and filing of cases against the suspects, the involvement of the community is vital, she said.

“The TCPO, or the entire police force for that matter, as much as possible does not want anybody to be killed, because these victims are also humans and the police want to save and protect lives, as we subscribe to human rights and Constitutional rights of people,” Ortega said.

However, she said that while the police wanted to uphold its mandate of protecting lives during every legitimate operations, there are instances wherein the drug personality subject of arrest would resist and fight back.

Denying that the police would always kill drug personalities who will draw their firearms and fight back, Ortega cited a recent police operation at Sabang District in Tacloban where only one suspect was killed while three others were wounded in the shootout. The wounded suspects were taken to the hospital and guarded by the police, she said.

The implementation of Oplan Tokhang in the city, from July to the present, the TCPO visited 3,450 houses, resulting in the surrender of 2,805 drug personalities, arrests of 138 arrests and neutralizing seven suspects during buy-bust operations. She agreed that drugs have been always a contributory factor to crimes.

Ortega hoped much that the public will appreciate the benefit of Project Double Barrel. “I wanted the public to realize the beauty of Project Double Barrel or the PNP anti-illegal drugs campaign, because in their understanding, those who will surrender under this project will be killed,” Ortega told The Freeman.

“We are inviting any pusher or user to come out for proper documentation without penalties incurred right after they surrender, same with surrendering any drug paraphernalia or shabu that they possess,” she said.

“These drug personalities should not wait for the police to do case build up and conduct buy-bust against them,” she said. “We police officers are also parents and we want our children to live in a city safe from drugs,” Ortega said, exhorting drug surrenderers not to return to substance use and peddling anymore.

Meanwhile, the Tacloban City government, led by Mayor Cristina Gonzales Romualdez, had rolled out its drug rehabilitation program for the drug surenderers through its Transformation Inside and Out program, which also include livelihood plan for them.

The local Catholic Church, particularly the Sto. Niño Parish and Our Lady of Fatima Parish in the Archdiocese of Palo are also participating by supporting the anti-illegal drugs campaign of the Duterte administration. (FREEMAN)