Three deaths in one day
If the police are to be believed, criminal syndicates are alive and well in Cebu and are trying to tie up loose ends, targeting associates that might pose as liabilities.
They say that’s what probably happened to Janelyn Encila, sister of Jocelyn Encila, last Wednesday night, March 6.
She may have been killed after the Kuratong Baleleng Gang deemed her useless after the arrest of her sister and parents last Sunday.
Apparently, the two siblings had vast knowledge of the group’s illegal transactions in the province. Perhaps, the group was afraid one of them would squeal and Janelyn was murdered to send a message to Jocelyn and to the others who planned on cooperating with authorities.
Jocelyn is the former live-in partner of Rustico Ygot, a convicted inmate at the New Bilibid Prisons in Muntinlupa City. He reportedly made an alliance with Kuratong members to strengthen their drug trafficking business in Cebu.
Janelyn, who allegedly collected and deposited drug payments in Ygot’s bank account, was not the only victim last Wednesday.
Alleged party drug dealer Neil Benjamin Eugenio Yap was shot dead by motorcycle-riding assassins while driving along M.C. Briones St. in Barangay Guizo, Mandaue City around noon that day.
Police say a drug syndicate may have masterminded his murder, but they didn’t say which one. Either way, Yap might have also been willing to spill the beans, which was why he was silenced.
Yap was arrested with Richard Ngo Go in a drug bust in January last year. He was out on bail.
The third person to be killed that day was Technical Sergeant Mikey Espina, a former police investigator in Talisay City, who was relieved because of his alleged links to the illegal drug trade.
He was relaxing on the terrace on the second floor of his house in Barangay Dumlog, Talisay City when he was shot by a sniper, or snipers, who arrived in two white vans.
His family denied he was involved in illegal drugs. They said he told them he had received threats from the Kuratong after he arrested some of its members in Barangay Tangke.
Police did not say if the three cases were connected. It may even have been pure coincidence these happened on the same day or that the victims might have been killed because they had become too dangerous for certain criminal elements to be left alive.