Cebu lawman eyed in Leyte mayor’s slay

CEBU CITY — A policeman based in the province has been tagged as the principal suspect in last Thursday’s killing of a Leyte mayor and his son here.

Investigators are now following up leads that the Cebu-based policeman is a native of Hindang, Leyte, and was once an armed escort of former Mayor Betty Cabal before joining the police force.

It was only when Cabal lost to slain Hindang Mayor Roy Jumao-as in the 2001 elections that the escort left Cabal.

Jumao-as reportedly earned the ire and animosity of the bodyguard-turned-policeman because the mayor allegedly influenced police authorities to have him transferred to an out-of-town assignment.

Jumao-os reportedly sought the policeman’s relief and transfer to a neighboring province after he allegedly brought shabu to Hindang.

After a year in his new assignment, the policeman returned to Cebu where he is presently assigned in one of five component cities.

The Cebu City police and the National Bureau of Investigation are pursuing separate investigations into the taxi used by the killers of Jumao-as and his 25-year-old son Jake.

The NBI discovered that the assailants rode in a Ken taxi. A witness who saw the shooting from the rooftop of a building on D. Jakosalem street, managed to take note of the taxi’s license plate (GVL 858) and body number which were later traced to a Ken taxi. The taxi driver is now in the custody of the NBI.

Jumao-as had just arrived in Cebu on Thursday and was with his son Jake who fetched him from the port. They were getting down from a taxi in front of their rented apartment at the corner of D. Jakosalem street and Gen. Maxilom Avenue when two men shot them.

As Jumao-as and his son fell to the pavement, their attackers, both wearing denim shorts with one in a white t-shirt and the other in a red shirt, finished them off with more shots from their caliber .45 pistols. They then calmly walked away to an apparently waiting taxi.

Jumao-as, a Cebuano married to a Hindang native, is running for re-election in the May 10 elections.

His brother Romeo suspects that the killing was politically motivated.

The mayor had reportedly received death threats and was told that he would be killed in Cebu. But he merely ignored them. — Freeman News Service