Drugs believed to have spurred killing of 3

CEBU CITY — Three persons, including a policeman and a suspected dealer in party drugs, were killed in separate incidents on Wednesday.

Chief Master Sergeant Mikee Espina was standing in the terrace of his house in Barangay Dumlog, Talisay City, when he was shot around 11 a.m.

Staff Sergeant Glenn Besande, investigator of the Talisay police station, said no one saw the gunman, who was believed to have fired at Espina from inside a white van.

A heavily tinted white van was reportedly seen near Espina’s house before the incident.

The policeman took several gunshot wounds to the body and was declared dead at the South General Hospital.

He was assigned in Talisay before being reassigned to Masbate. He was on leave at the time he was killed.

Police are investigating possible motives of the attack, which happened a day after Police Brig. Gen. Debold Sinas, Central Visayas police chief, revealed that some drug lords have hired hitmen from Mindanao to hit back at the police for its aggressive campaign against illegal drugs.

Lt. Col. Eloveo Marquez, spokesman of the Cebu provincial police, said Espina’s family suspect that he was killed by assassins belonging to the Kuratong Baleleng gang of Ozamiz City.

Marquez said the policeman was reassigned to Masbate after he was implicated in illegal drug activities but no cases were filed against him.

About an hour after the killing in Talisay, a 34-year-old man was ambushed while driving a car in a busy street in Mandaue City.

Neil Benjamin Yap was driving along F. Seno Highway when motorcycle-riding gunmen pulled alongside his car and started shooting at him.

Yap appeared in a matrix of a supposed “ecstasy ring” that the regional police released last month.

Police Col. Julian Entoma said Yap was busted for selling ecstasy in January last year.

Entoma said investigators will be checked if Yap posted bail or if the case filed against him was dismissed.

At around 7 p.m., a woman whose parents and sister were arrested in drug bust last Sunday was killed by motorcycle-riding assailants in Barangay Labogon, Mandaue.