Cebu's loss
INEVER met Senior Insp. Alexander Nuñez, the 38-yearold chief of the Catmon Police Station, but I, along with so many others, mourn his untimely demise. Last Saturday afternoon, Nuñez left work early so he could join his family in Lapu-Lapu City. His wife, also a member of the police force, was busy preparing their noche buena dinner. Their two young sons eagerly awaited his arrival.
As chance would have it, Nuñez passed by a commotion in Barangay Puente in the neighboring town of Carmen.
True to his calling, Nuñez, who was wearing civilian clothes, stopped his vehicle to check what was going on, unaware that that decision would seal his doom.
Shortly before he arrived, around 4 p.m., witness Mateo Bejoc Barro Jr. said he heard successive gunshots. Minutes later, he saw Carlito Jayson pass along with his daughter, gun in hand.
Barro asked Carlito what was wrong, and the latter responded that he had fired a warning shot after a younger sibling hit him in the head.
When Nuñez showed up, he confronted Carlito for being armed.
It was then, Barro said, that Carlito put his daughter beside the national highway, drew his firearm from his waistband and fired at the police official and missed.
Nuñez, the witness said, fired back, hitting Carlito in various parts of the body.
He must have thought it was over and done with. All he'd have to do was wait for backup and then he could resume his journey back to his family. So when Carlito's brothers approached him and asked him what he had done, Nuñez, not knowing who they were, thought nothing of telling them to mind their own business.
Nuñez even managed to pick up Carlito's gun and was about to put it inside his vehicle when he was jumped from behind.
The police official was no match for Carlito's brothers Ricardo, Jayme, Camilo and Carlo.
According to reports, Jayme, Camilo and Carlo held him, while Ricardo grabbed Nuñez's firearm and “used it to shoot the police official four times, twice in the back of his head, at close range.”
A photo in Sun.Star Superbalita shows the body of the dead Nuñez slumped on the ground.
At that moment, the lives of Nuñez's family would never be the same again. PO3 Queen Brigitte Viernes would lose her “down-to-earth” and “perfect” husband and her two sons would lose a “hero.”
According to one of his friends, Atty. Vincent Isles, Nuñez also touched the lives of many minors and persons he and his men had rescued during his stint as Cordova Police Station chief.
Isles said he got to know the police official when he was working for the Children's Legal Bureau.
The lawyer said listeners to his radio program were amazed at Nuñez's quick actions against suspected criminal activities in the Mactan town. (To those who don't know, Cordova, at one point, had become synonymous with cyberpornography.)
His memory would always be remembered by those he had helped, Isles said.