Bato orders probe of OFW son’s killing

Philippine National Police Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa has ordered an investigation into the killing of an overseas Filipino worker’s 19-year-old son who was tagged as a drug pusher.

“I have instructed the district director of the Northern Police District [Senior Supt. Roberto Fajardo] to solve that case because that’s murder,” Dela Rosa said, referring to the murder of Raymart Siapo on March 29.

Siapo, a person with disability because of his clubfeet, was abducted by 14 bonnet-wearing men who shot him twice in the head. The day before, his neighbor in Barangay NBBS, Navotas City, whom he had an argument with, told barangay officials that he sold marijuana.

“That’s what they suspect as the source of the boy’s misfortune. Whether it’s true or not, it’s still murder,” Dela Rosa told reporters on Monday.

In a phone interview yesterday, Navotas police chief Senior Supt. Dante Novicio said that although Siapo was not on the drug watch list of Barangay NBBS, he was on theirs.

According to him, Navotas policemen had been monitoring the teenager since January for selling “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride) and for using their apartment in Navotas as a drug den. The information came from different people, he added.

In fact, they had been planning to launch an operation against Siapo but “somebody beat us to it,” Novicio said.

“His mother [Luzviminda] does not know what was happening to her son because she was not here,” he stressed.

Novicio also called Luzviminda’s narration of the events behind her son’s death “twisted.” (Link: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/887697/drug-war-sends-ofw-rushing-home-for-son-who-couldnt-run) “They said 14 men? I think that’s too many,” he said.

For Luzviminda, their neighbor Pejie Fortaliza’s accusation against her son was the reason why bonnet-clad men took and killed him.

“I went to the police last week and they said my son was was not on the watch list. Now, he’s on the watch list,” she told the Inquirer in a phone interview.

She asked the police to solve the case and produce Siapo’s killers instead of tagging him as a pusher.

“Now my son is selling shabu? Where’s the evidence? Also, they don’t want to believe that 14 men took my son? How come they have an idea about the number? Do they know who did it?” Luzviminda said.

When asked why homicide investigators told Luzviminda that her son was not on the drug watch list, Novicio replied: “Because the watch list was not with the homicide division but with the antidrugs unit.”