BY STEPHEN LOUIE CHECA and RUBY SILUBRICO
SAN JOSE, Antique – The Antique Rehabilitation Center jail guard that motorcycle-riding shooters killed on Wednesday was a drug trafficking suspect, police said.
Jonathan Pava Sr. was considered a “high-value target level 3,” according to Superintendent Mark Anthony Darroca, municipal police head.
Riding in tandem in a motorcycle, two shooters clad in black jackets and helmets fired at the homebound Pava at around 7:10 p.m.
Pava was on board his own motorcycle when attacked just a few meters from his house on Cerdeña Street, Barangay 8.
Darroca said Pava, 47, was a drug “surrenderer” – one of the people tagged to the drug trade who turned surrendered to the police as part of the Duterte administration’s war on drugs.
Pava turned himself in to the San Jose police station on March 2 last year as part of Oplan Tokhang, wherein officers knock on the doors of suspected drug users and/or peddlers and ask them to surrender.
Based on intelligence information, Pava was affiliated with a drug trafficking group and behind the illegal drug trade inside the Antique Rehabilitation Center, the provincial jail, Darroca disclosed.
In addition, the same information revealed that Pava was on one of the “narco-lists” of President Rodrigo Duterte, Darroca said. Police were still verifying these, he added.
Pava denied involvement in the drug trade at the provincial jail and gave the police some names of drug suspects when he surrendered, said the officer.
The back-riding assailant shot Pava on the back. The jail guard fell to the ground and the shooter kept firing, hitting him twice on the head, police investigation showed.
Personnel from the San Jose Emergency Medical Services brought Pava to the Angel Salazar Memorial General Hospital where he was pronounced “dead on arrival.”
The shooters were still unidentified as of this writing.
Darroca said they have found at least six empty .45 shells at the crime scene and Pava sustained at least three gunshot wounds, one on the body and two on the head. The final autopsy report was not yet available as of this writing.
While they believe the murder of Pava was related to illegal drugs, the local police remained open to other possible motives.
“We have yet to talk to his family, friends and coworkers,” Darroca said, adding that they were also getting clues from footages taken by security cameras near the crime scene.
Darroca allayed public concerns on peace and order. “Please do not be afraid,” he said. “Your police are hands-on with this problem. We are doing our best to make everybody feel safe and secure.”/PN
