"I love you. Take care of the kids. Love them." This was the final message of PO2 Arvin Garces to his 31-year-old wife, Rhodora, at 6 a.m. Tuesday, uttered minutes before he died of gunshot wounds to his shoulder and spine.
On Tuesday morning, suspected Abu Sayyaf bandit Buyungan Bungkak, who was detained at Camp Crame, grabbed an M-16 assault rifle and 9mm pistol from his guard, SPO1 Frumencio Lafuente.
Bungkak was out of his detention cell for his daily exercise under armed escort.
The suspected bomber held Lafuente hostage and engaged the police in a bloody, three-hour standoff during which he shot Lafuente in the head with the policeman’s pistol.
Garces and PO2 Alastaire Garcia were shot while trying to aid their comrade. Garcia was hit in the head and chest.
Bungkak was shot dead inside the toilet of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG)’s Anti-Organized Crime and Businessmen’s Concerns Division (AOCBCD) building, where he had holed up.
Between sobs, Rhodora said she received a distress call from her husband at 6 a.m., while she was tending the family store in Cabanatuan City.
Garces told his wife over the phone that he was bleeding heavily from two severe bullet wounds in the left shoulder and spine.
"At first, I thought he was conducting operations," Rhodora said. "But he informed me that he was holed up in the barracks."
Fighting the pain, Garces told his wife he was trapped inside the barracks located in the AOCBCD building, Rhodora said.
She added that her husband — wounded and cut off from help — had called her using his cellular phone.
Garces was also able to call his father Rogelio and some close friends and relatives before he died. Between calls, he sought safety by moving from office cubicle to office cubicle.
"I cannot get out of here because the man who shot me is still here," Rhodora quoted her husband as saying. She also said she "tried to calm (Garces) down. I said I (was) on my way to see him through."
During each phone call, Garces expressed his love for his family, especially his sons Kevin, 9; Joshua, 7; and three-month-old Jacob.
During his conversation with his dying son, Rogelio encouraged Garces to be strong. "He said he was (badly) hit and that we would have to take care of his sons. I told him: ‘Fight it, tap your inner strength.’"
At 6:43 a.m., Garces sent his wife a text message: "I love you ma and the kids. Please love them." Help from responding police units came about an hour and a half later.
Rhodora said Garces always found time to go home to Cabanatuan to see her and their sons. "He always tries to come home, despite his busy schedule. Even (if it is) just to spend the night with us. (Sometimes) he arrives at midnight to see his children and hug them, then he takes the first bus back to Manila in the morning."
Garces was described by his family as a very jolly and friendly person, and his death an unfathomable loss to those he loved. Speaking in Filipino, Rhodora said, "It hurts so much that he is gone. My children know what happened, but they do not understand (it) because they do not know what pain is."
Garces was the eldest and only boy in a brood of four children. One of his sisters is undergoing police training.
His father said Garces had wanted to become a police officer since childhood and even quit his job as a security investigator for the Far East Bank and Trust Co. (FEBTC) in 1997 to join the ranks of the PNP. He was due for a lateral promotion to Inspector on Oct. 16.
He was brought to the PNP General Hospital and pronounced dead on arrival.
PNP Directorate for Personnel chief Director Jose Lalisan personally extended his condolences to the families of the slain law enforcers.
Lalisan said three other policemen injured in the standoff will be given the wounded personnel medal by the PNP leadership. They are: Senior Inspector Roel Rumbaoa, PO3 Angelito de Juan and PO2 Armando Reyes.
Lalisan and Chief Superintendent Dominador Resos of the PNP Public Safety and Mutual Benefits Fund personally handed over a total of P71,000 to the families of Garces, Garcia and Lafuente.
The sum is part of the initial death benefits given by the PNP to the families of policemen "killed in action."
Besides this initial benefit payment, the families of the three slain police officers will receive P50,000 each from the special fund of the PNP chief and P58,000, representing 50 percent of the police officers’ base pay for one year. By next month, the slain lawmen’s wives will begin to receive monthly pensions.
Not stopping there, Lalisan said the PNP will try to make arrangements for additional educational benefits for the children of Garces, Garcia and Lafuente.