‘Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra has ordered an investigation of the high-profile inmates’ death but no one is really expecting anything.’
DOUBTS that were raised in reaction to news reports about the death of nine high-profile inmates of the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa due to COVID-19 reflects on the zero credibility of the agency that has been embroiled in a number of scandals, the most recent the “freedom for sale” scheme.
News reports said among those who died and whose body was immediately cremated was Jaybee Sebastian, a government witness and a co-respondent in the drug trafficking cases filed against Sen. Leila de Lima.
Others who were reported to have died due to COVID-19 were Benjamin Marcelo, leader of Chinese inmates at NBP; Zhang Zhu Li, Jimmy Kinsing Hung, Francis Go, Jimmy Yang, Eugene Chua, Ryan Ong and Amin Imam Buratong, convicted operator of the shabu tiangge in Pasig City in 2009.
Immediately after the news report came out, ABS-CBN ran a December 2017 article published in United Kingdom’s The Telegraph titled, “Faking your own death: How the Philippines became the global leader for a macabre trade.”
Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra has ordered an investigation of the high-profile inmates’ death but no one is really expecting anything.
Chat groups are filled with scenarios of what to expect next, inspired by past reports of plastic surgeries drug lords in Colombia and Mexico underwent to evade authorities.
There was a report about a former Colombian drug lord, Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, who testified in the trial of the notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, with distorted facial features.
He admitted in court that he had undergone at least three surgeries that altered his jawbone, cheekbones, eyes, mouth, ears, and nose.
Despite the distortion of his face, US authorities still got him.
There’s also the 2016 report about David Garza ívila, known as El Diablo or The Devil for the executions he had performed in Mexico, who was arrested on his way to Mexico City hospital to undergo facial plastic surgery.
The most publicized was about Amado Carrillo Fuentes, also known as “The Lord of the Skies,” because he trafficked cocaine from Mexico to America using fleets of aircrafts, who died while undergoing plastic surgery in 1997.
The bodies of his plastic surgeons were later found stuffed inside oil drums, news reports said.
***
Email:ellentordesillas@gmail.com
