Ex-gov in slay hospitalized

DIGOS CITY—Former Gov. Douglas Cagas, now detained as the accused mastermind in the 2010 murder of journalist Nestor Bedolido, was rushed to a hospital here on Wednesday.

Chief Insp. Peter Bongngat, district warden of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology here, said Cagas was taken to Medical Center of Digos Cooperative in Barangay Tres de Mayo here, where he was examined by cardiologist Vicente Balazo.

Balazo was the same cardiologist who recommended the hospitalization of another accused, Mayor Vicente Fernandez of Matanao town, Davao del Sur province, on Oct. 20, when Judge Carmelita Davin issued the warrant for the arrest of all suspects in Bedolido’s murder.

Cagas was still at the hospital as of yesterday while Fernandez was under hospital arrest at Digos Doctors’ Hospital, Bongngat said.

In a text message, Bongngat quoted doctor Balazo as saying Cagas was “hypertensive.”

Jeffrey Tupas, secretary general of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines’s Davao chapter, said he doubted that Cagas’ illness needed hospitalization.

Lawyer Cesar Europa, counsel for the Bedolido family, said the family was still unaware of the basis for the transfer of Cagas to the hospital “but if it was a manipulation to give him special treatment, we will certainly question it.”

After his surrender last month, Cagas spent a lot of time at the infirmary in the district jail here.

His arrest was ordered after Justice Secretary Leila de Lima approved the refiling of the murder case that government prosecutors had earlier dismissed against Cagas, Fernandez and two other men allegedly involved in the Bedolido murder.

It was self-confessed gunman Voltaire Mirafuentes who implicated Cagas as the mastermind of the murder plot.

Mirafuentes also implicated alleged Cagas henchmen Bado Sanchez and Ali Ordaneza in the killing. Sanchez and Ordaneza remain at large.

The trial of the Bedolido murder case hit a snag when Judge Carmelita Davin, who issued the warrant for the arrest of Cagas and the three other accused, inhibited from the case. The second judge, Magnolia Velez, who got the case last week, also inhibited due to her relationship with Cagas’ wife, Davao del Sur Rep. Mercedes Cagas.

‘If it was a manipulation to give him special treatment, we will certainly question it’