PNP to probe death of another Parojinog sibling

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine National Police on Monday said it would look into the death on Sunday of the sister and coaccused of former Ozamiz City councilor Ricardo “Ardot” Parojinog, who also died in detention two days earlier.

Gen. Camilo Cascolan, the PNP chief, said Melodina Parojinog-Malingin died on Sunday at 7:45 a.m. in the intensive care unit of Mayor Hilarion A. Ramiro Sr. Medical Center in Ozamiz City.

She succumbed to “cardiogenic shock secondary to intractable cardiac arrhythmia, atrial fibrillation to ventricular tachycardia secondary to massive gastrointestinal bleeding secondary to uremic gastropathy,” Cascolan said, quoting the hospital’s findings on Malingin’s death.

Her brother, who was found dead on Friday in his prison cell at the Ozamiz police station, died of “cardiopulmonary arrest secondary to cardiovascular disease and probable COVID-19,” Northern Mindanao police chief Brig. Gen. Rolando Anduyan said on Friday.

Worsening health

Cascolan said he did not understand the physician’s findings on Malingin’s cause of death.

“I have to find out what are these,” he said. “We will investigate. We will evaluate and we will also ask the doctors that have the findings so that they could give us an idea of what really happened.”

But Jail Officer 1 Christian Mendez, a nurse at the prison, attested to Malingin’s worsening health before she died.

“When we checked her vital signs, we found out her blood pressure was very low, which prompted us to bring her to the hospital for further medical assessment,” he said, adding that Malingin had undergone a procedure on her uterus and was already bedridden before she was returned to the hospital where she died.

Cascolan said “Melodina had … been under detention while awaiting trial for her drug case along with husband Gaudencio when police found eight kilograms of ‘shabu’ in their possession during a search of their home on Dec. 6, 2017.”

As for her brother, Ricardo, the PNP chief said his remains had been turned over to his family after forensic examination.
The body was held earlier at a funeral parlor in Ozamiz for testing for COVID-19.

Cascolan said the Misamis Occidental provincial police office would proceed with its investigation of Ricardo Parojinog’s death.

But according to Col. Danildo Tumanda, the provincial police chief, “the family of Ardot Parojinog did not request … an autopsy, … knowing full well the health condition of the deceased.”

According to Tumanda, relatives and friends of Parojinog were the ones providing him food such as crabs, shrimps and dumplings, as “per [our] agreement [that] we are not to give the suspect food and water.”

‘Suspicious death’

In a statement, detained opposition Sen. Leila de Lima said of Ricardo Parojinog’s death: “How convenient for the authorities that Parojinog suddenly dies there.”

“They know or should have known that Ozamiz City has become a hostile territory for the now beleaguered Parojinog clan whom the President threatened to ‘wipe out.’

Truly, this is another suspicious death of a targeted drug personality within a jail or prison,” she said.

Two other siblings of the Parojinogs, former Ozamiz mayor Reynaldo Parojinog and Octavio Parojinog Jr., were killed, together with Reynaldo’s wife, Susan, in a police raid on their home on July 30, 2017.

The Commission on Human Rights on Monday said it would conduct its own probe into the sudden deaths of the Parojinog siblings.

—With reports from Jigger J. Jerusalem, Divina Suson, Leila B. Salaverria and Krixia Subingsubing