Lapu-Lapu attacks: Vigilantes or narco war?

CEBU — A drug suspect was gunned down in Lapu-Lapu City last Monday, bringing to three the number of suspected drug-related violent incidents there in three weeks.

This has led some sectors in the police to theorize that an anti-drug vigilante group similar to the one operating in Davao City may have surfaced in Cebu or that there is an ongoing gang war in the drug underworld.

In an interview with radio station dyLA, Lapu-Lapu City police homicide chief Geoffrey Baguio said it is possible that anti-drug vigilantes from Davao City are now in the city to liquidate drug traffickers.

Or, Baguio said the two killers of drug suspect Eric Dimala last Monday could be from rival gangs.

He raised the two theories to debunk allegations that policemen were behind Dimala’s gunslaying, as three female witnesses alleged.

He said he could not believe that policemen would summarily execute suspects or that they would introduce themselves as law enforcers.

Nevertheless, he said he would investigate the allegations and that police would go after the attackers.

Meanwhile, the assailants of Dimala and those who attempted to kill drug suspects Pepito Trifon and Joel Tampus were all riding in motorcycles.

Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Arturo Radaza could not be contacted for comment. His vice mayor, Norma Patalinjug, on the other hand, refused to give a statement.

But Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, who traveled to Davao City to show solidarity with Mayor Rodrigo Duterte following the terrorist attacks there last March and April, said he does not favor the emergence of a vigilante group anywhere in Cebu.

Osmeña said he does not believe in people taking the law into their own hands.

Regional police director Roberto Delfin disagreed with Baguio’s vigilante theory, saying it is unlikely that Davao City vigilantes would come all the way to Cebu to liquidate drug suspects.— Freeman News Service