Just prove it

SPO1 Adonis Dumpit was, to some Cebuanos, someone who was larger than life. His image, sculpted when he joined the Hunter Team formed by Mayor Tomas Osmeña to battle criminality in Cebu City in the 1990s, became the stuff of legend. It obviously helped that he was known as a sharpshooter. That, coupled with his no-nonsense demeanor while going after suspected criminals, conjured admiration.

City Councilor Margot Osmeña, the mayor’s wife, noted that when she recalled the time Dumpit acted as the mayor’s bodyguard. “He was the one who was very sikat (famous). I used to tease Tommy that when they go out they (the people) will ask for a picture with Dumpit and not with Tommy.”

It, therefore, pays for the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) 7 and the Regional Intelligence Division (RID) of the Police Regional Office 7 to be upfront, especially to Dumpit’s admirers, on the circumstances of his death and the operation that they conducted against him in Tagbilaran City in Bohol where the slain cop was assigned.

Even now, some sectors are questioning the claim that Dumpit was a drug lord. For them, the NBI 7 and RID 7 need to present solid proof of the slain officer’s link to the illegal drug trade other than the packs of shabu he was supposedly carrying during the alleged shootout that killed him and the previous complaint of an operative of the Tagbilaran City Police Station against him.

The first one could not constitute solid proof because the claim that shabu was found in Dumpit’s possession was only made by the NBI 7 and RID 7 operatives who were responsible for his death. The second one is interesting but even if Dumpit did intervene to have the case against a man arrested in a drug bust lowered, that does not constitute proof he was a drug lord.

That may have contributed to his demise because the operation against him was done weeks after the vehicle of the complaining Tagbilaran City Police Station operative was strafed. The insinuation was that Dumpit was behind the strafing because days before that, he and a companion were looking for the operative. Was the law enforcers’ perception of Dumpit affected by that incident?

Dumpit’s admirers want solid proof of his supposed links to the illegal drug trade.