Cagas back in jail

Former Davao del Sur governor Douglas Cagas. FILE PHOTO

DIGOS CITY, Philippines—The former governor of Davao del Sur who has been accused of masterminding the 2010 killing of journalist Nestor Bedolido has been brought back to the district jail here after spending two days in a hospital.

Chief Insp. Peter Bongngat, district jail warden, said Douglas Cagas was discharged from the hospital on Friday and was escorted back to the jail, which is administered by the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, around 11:30 a.m.

The former provincial executive was rushed to the Medical Center of Digos Coop. here on Wednesday due to chest pains.

The Inquirer learned that cardiologist Vicente Balazo, the same cardiologist who recommended the hospitalization of another Bedolido suspect, Mayor Vicente Fernandez of Matanao, Davao del Sur, on October 20, had recommended that he be admitted as he was “hypertensive with cardiovascular disease” and suffering from “gastro easophageal reflux.”

Jeffrey Tupas, secretary general of the Davao chapter of the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines, said he doubted if Cagas’ illness needed hospitalization.

Lawyer Cesar Europa, counsel for the Bedolido family, said it was possible that Cagas’ case was indeed a medical emergency requiring hospitalization and that a local judge might have allowed the BJMP to bring him there.

The Inquirer learned that Regional Trial Court Executive Judge Carmelita Davin gave the go signal for Cagas’ treatment.

“We do not see any reason to oppose if it was in order. It is also the right of any accused to seek emergency medical treatment. But if it was a manipulation to afford him special treatment, then we will certainly question it,” Europa earlier told the Inquirer in a telephone interview.

Bongngat said Cagas will remain at the district jail’s infirmary, as he did since yielding on October 20.

Bongngat said putting Cagas in a regular jail with other inmates could pose a security problem.

“We have to make sure he is not harmed,” he said.

Cagas was arrested after Justice Secretary Leila de Lima approved the refiling of a murder case, which government prosecutors had earlier dismissed, against him, Fernandez and two other suspects in the killing of Bedolido in June 2010.

Confessed gunman Voltaire Mirafuentes implicated Cagas as the brains behind the killing of the 56-year-old journalist, and Fernandez as the one who planned how to carry it out.

Mirafuentes also implicated two other people, Bado Sanchez and Ali Ordaneza, who remain at large.

The trial of the Bedolido murder case hit a snag when Judge Carmelita Davin, who issued the warrant for the arrest of Cagas and the three other suspects, inhibited herself.

The second judge, Magnolia Velez, who was assigned to the case last week, also inhibited herself due to her relation by affinity to Cagas’ wife, Davao del Sur Rep. Mercedes Cagas.