EDITORIAL - The end of the Nuezca story

One piece of news that likely escaped most of us was the death of Jonel Nuezca, the policeman who shot dead his neighbor Sonya Gregorio and her son Frank Anthony execution-style in Tarlac in December 2020.

According to the Bureau of Corrections, Nuezca, who was serving his 40-year sentence for double murder, just suddenly collapsed while he was walking outside his dormitory at the New Bilibid Prisons last Tuesday afternoon. He was unresponsive when brought to the prison hospital and declared dead at 6:44 p.m. that same day.

As of this writing the cause of his death is still unknown and the results of the autopsy on his body have yet to be released.

Nuezca joins a list of people, mostly high-profile inmates, who died in the jail under mysterious or questionable circumstances. The most prominent one was that of kidnapping and carnapping kingpin Jaybee Sebastian who actually lorded it over the jail before he allegedly died of COVID-19 last July.

Until now there are those who cast doubt on the cause of death of Sebastian. Some even venture to say the crime boss faked his death in the prison and is actually still alive outside of it. In the case of Nuezca, some members of the Gregorio family have also voiced fears he may actually still be alive and was let out.

Although this may be farfetched, we will wait for the authorities to allay these fears and conspiracy theories.

Too bad, in a way we can say that Nuezca escaped justice.

We would have wanted to see Nuezca serve out his sentence, most likely the rest of his life, behind bars. No longer able to enjoy the freedoms he used to, no longer being able to go to the places he loved. Call us sadistic, but we think it’s a fair price to pay for taking the law into his own hands so callously.

In doing what he did, Nuezca ruined the Gregorio Family and his own, as well as tarnished the name of the organization assigned to uphold law and order.

He still got the better end of the deal compared to the two he killed in cold blood, whose family now have to live with the consequences, and the organization that will carry the stain of his dishonor for quite some time.