EDITORIAL - Death by asphyxiation

Like a scene from a mobster movie, the gruesome picture was painted by Dr. Raquel Fortun, one of just two forensic pathologists in the country. Facing the press on a stormy Saturday, Fortun said autopsy results indicated that Cristito “Jun” Villamor, one of two alleged bridges or middlemen between a gang of hired guns and the brains behind the murder of broadcaster Percy Lapid, died of asphyxiation, apparently through a plastic bag placed over his head.

Shortly before Villamor stopped breathing on Oct. 18 at the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa, he managed to send text messages to his sister, informing her that three NBP gang leaders had been tasked to kill him. At least two days before this, rumors were already circulating that the triggerman in Lapid’s murder was set to surrender. Villamor was killed on the same day that the gunman, Joel Escorial, was presented to the press.

With no external signs of fatal injury, Villamor’s remains were released ASAP from the NBP Hospital after he was pronounced dead, and turned over to a funeral parlor, which proceeded to embalm the body.

As it became known that Villamor could be a key player in Lapid’s murder, the National Bureau of Investigation’s medico-legal office examined the body and announced that it bore no signs of external physical injuries. But a series of tweets from Fortun, raising questions about the NBI report, prompted Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla to enlist her for a full-blown medical autopsy on Villamor.

And that was where that picture of horror emerged. The question is how rampant that kind of execution is at the NBP. The murder weapon is widely available, and the victim cannot make any noise while being suffocated to death. As the NBI noted, no external injuries are visible. If proper autopsies had been conducted on at least nine high-value inmates who supposedly died of COVID at the height of the lockdowns in 2020, would asphyxiation also have emerged as the cause of death? No autopsies were conducted and the bodies were immediately cremated, ostensibly in accordance with COVID health protocols.

At the height of the Tokhang and Double Barrel war on drugs waged by the Duterte administration, murder by asphyxiation appeared to be a preferred mode of executing suspected drug personalities. But the perpetrators did not bother to hide the mode of killing. Numerous persons turned up dead with their wrists and ankles bound together and their heads wrapped in plastic and packing tape.

Fortun also said traces of methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu were found in Villamor’s remains. This indicates the continued entry of contraband into the supposedly maximum security compound of the country’s largest prison facility. The NBP and its mother unit the Bureau of Corrections are in dire need of housecleaning.