A police officer in Davao City was shot and killed in Sitio Luman, Barangay New Valencia, Tugbok District by two unidentified men believed to be elements of the rebel New People’s Army on Monday morning.
Tugbok Police Station deputy station commander Sr. Insp. Nolan P. Tagsip identified the victim as PO3 Wilfredo Garol, Intel non-commissioned officer of Baguio Police Station, who lives in Calinan, Davao City.
Tagsip revealed that at 7:45a.m. of November 13, Garol drove his wife to the Luman Elementary School where she works as a schoolteacher.
When he was about to return home, two unidentified men boarded him from the school. He said the wife of the victim narrated to them that when the motorcycle of his husband about to climb series of gun bursts were heard. “Yung perpetrator niya kinuha po yung motorcycle at saka yung service firearm niya (His perpetrator stole the motorcycle and service firearm of the victim),” he said.
Chief Supt. Manuel Gaerlan, police regional director, condemned the “senseless and cowardly attack and killing of Garol by suspected lawless armed groups.”
“He was good public servant, a police officer and loving husband,” he said, adding the act showed that the NPAs have no regard for human rights.”
Tagsip disclosed the Garol sustained eight ‘fatal’ gunshot wounds in his body and head which caused his immediate death. He said the Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO) recovered empty shells of calibre .45 from the crime scene.
Tagsip said investigators now are probing the possible motives of the crime against Garol. “We will conduct an investigation because we are looking all angles of the crime,” he said. Davao reporters went to Lumen Elementary School where his wife worked as a public school teacher for 12 years.
Renito Untua, school officer-in-charge, said the victim had been diligent in driving and fetching his to the school for the past 12 years.
He said when President Rodrigo R. Duterte revoked the ceasefire between the government and the Communist Party of the Philippines, Garol started “to lie low” and sometimes would pay someone to fetch and drop his wife to school.
The Davao City Police Office condemned the ‘brutal killing’ og Garol. In a statement, DCPO director Sr. Supt Alexander C Tagum, said the death of Garol will be thoroughly investigated “to identify those behind his treacherous killing, it will not however deter our commitment in our intensified fight against all forms of domestic threats posed by Communist Terrorist or Criminals”.
“This incident will also served as a strong warning to all personnel of DCPO that they cannot afford to relax their personal security because then it will cause them their lives,” he said. Tagum said although they accept the danger of their chosen vocation, but “they will not allow his killers go unpunished”.
