Dumpit’s tragic end

It was the end of the line for SPO1 Adonis Dumpit. The man, before elements of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Regional Intelligence Division (RID) killed him in what was claimed to be a shootout in Tagbilaran City in Bohol, lived a colorful life. In a way, his death can be considered as tragic.

Dumpit was about to retire from the police force when he supposedly shot it out with his fellow law enforcers while allegedly carrying several sachets of shabu. Both the manner of his death and the claim that he had become a high-level drug personality while assigned in Bohol had made some people incredulous. How could a no-nonsense cop end up becoming a criminal in his latter years?

But then his career was one that took rather circuitous turns starting when when it had reached its zenith. And that was what made his life and death tragic. The ups and downs in his career have lessons other policemen can learn from.

Dumpit shot to fame for being one of the sharpshooters of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) when Tomas Osmeña was the mayor. Since then, his life and that of the mayor got intertwined for a while. Osmeña took the young policeman under his wings, and Dumpit responded by exhibiting his loyalty to the mayor.

Somewhere in 2004 to 2005, Osmeña formed a Hunter Team to fight criminality in the city with Dumpit as among his prized recruits. Not long after, unidentified vigilantes roamed the city engaging in a killing spree that copied the Davao City extra-judicial killings (EJK) experience.

Suspected criminals, some of them just fresh from their stints in the city jail, were gunned down in the streets and even inside their residences. Soon the bodies piled up. Some Cebuano leaders, worried about the consequences of the killings, condemned the act even as relatives of the victims sought justice.

Some people sought to link Dumpit to the vigilantes, a claim that was never proven. At the same time, his zeal in his official actions as a CCPO policeman caught the imagination of many. That zeal eventually became his undoing when he was charged in court for the killing of a suspected robber in 2004. He was convicted of homicide and jailed, eventually ending up in a Leyte detention facility.

It might not just be mere coincidence that Dumpit’s popularity rose at a time when Osmeña was inspiring a brutal drive against criminality. In a way, Dumpit’s no-nonsense demeanor symbolized what the mayor sought to implement in the city at that time. We could not say with certainty, though, how the mayor’s policy “inspired” Dumpit but his homicide conviction was an offshoot to that anti-crime drive.

That was when Dumpit’s career took that circuitous turn. Life in jail for him was obviously difficult and he complained about not getting the amount of legal support that he wanted. He was released in 2016 while his case was on appeal and after posting bail that Osmeña put up. He got reinstated and assigned in Bohol.

Now he is dead, killed by his fellow policemen who accused him of doing what the criminals he pursued with a certain degree of harshness were doing.